Reparations
by Dendrite Blues
Summary: Tony isn't going to fuck the God of Lies. He isn't. It would be a terrible, awful, super-bad-wrong decision. Loki is a war criminal with a weird nose. He's bony, awkward, and unrepentant. Nothing redeeming about him. But Tony is drunk at ten in the morning, so none of that stuff matters. A developing relationship kidfic with action and canon-divergent fix-it elements.
1. Chapter 1

Tony isn't going to fuck the God of Lies. He isn't. It would be a terrible, awful, super-bad-wrong decision. Loki is a war criminal with a weird nose. He's bony, awkward, and unrepentant. Nothing redeeming about him.

But Tony is drunk at ten in the morning, so none of that stuff matters. Here's what does:

Loki is standing in the middle of the UN assembly, in a suit two sizes too small and hair four inches longer than it was two years ago. He looks like a scarecrow beside his brother, even though he towers over nearly every human in the room. Every time he speaks, the sentence starts with _pardon my interruption_ and ends with _if it pleases the Council._

In the twenty minutes since Tony walked in thirty minutes late, Loki has looked over his shoulder four times to check him out. Two of those four times their eyes met, and Tony felt like he was looking in a funhouse mirror. Himself, in another face. Tired, haunted, wondering what the fuck he's doing here. And although the thought of kissing anyone makes Tony throw up in his mouth, Loki's lips look like the most delicious thing he's seen since Pepper walked out a year ago.

Self control is not his virtue, so it's a damn good thing he's in public, on Avengers business, with breath that could wake the dead. Otherwise he'd have Loki's slacks around his ankles in the backseat of the Mercedes by now.

"Two o'clock, blue tie?" Steve says under his breath, and Tony shakes out of his stupor. Right, work. He's supposed to be working security, not ogling a psychopath. The media will have a field day if he's caught stumbling and leering.

Following Steve's direction, he checks out the potential threat. Short dude, kind of chubby and squinting at his phone. He activates the highly invasive and extremely illegal signal interceptor he finished programming this morning over whiskey glass number three. The guys' web page appears on Tony's sunglasses.

Facebook, ugh. Typical. Boring.

He shakes his head at Cap. "Stalking his grand kids."

Steve looks perturbed. Tony laughs internally, and realizes it wasn't as internal as he planned when Steve huffs and crosses his arms.

"Will you take this seriously?" he asks, and Tony doesn't bother answering. Classic Capsicle. Always on the job.

By the time he tunes back in to the proceedings it's Loki's turn to sign his amnesty agreement. And ain't that a treasure. Loki, invader of New York, is about to become a legal citizen of Earth because his brother went on strike. Unbelievable.

A murmur ripples through the assembly when Loki whips out a knife from nowhere. It's a little thing, maybe three inches long with a loop on the end for throwing. Tony doesn't notice at first, because the movement shifts Loki's weight to one leg, and that makes the too-small pants cup his ass like spandex. God, he really shouldn't be drunk right now, he's at least two seconds behind everyone else in the room.

Fortunately Loki isn't looking to assassinate anyone. While every security guard and superhero in the room aims their weapons, he draws the blade down his own thumb and presses the bloody finger to the contract. Because signing his name with a pen would just be too pedestrian.

The blade vanishes with a pop and Tony can't look away. As a scientist and a rabid consumer of made-for-TV movies he needs to know how that works. There has to be a logical explanation. Aliens don't just beam down on Einstein-Rosen bridges and casually break the laws of physics.

Then Loki sticks his thumb in his mouth to stop the bleeding and Tony doesn't give a shit about physics. He's transfixed by the play of thin lips on a long finger, and the distracted flick of Loki's eyes reflexively checking all the room's exits. It's a blend of habitual and anxious that Tony knows vividly, and when their eyes meet for the third time it feels charged. Like getting zapped by static electricity. Then Thor claps Loki on the shoulder and the moment's broken. Loki brushes off his brother's hand and disappears into the atrium.

Normally Happy hangs on to Tony's effects, but the UN's rules don't have exceptions for famous billionaires. The line for the coat check is so long he almost mistakes it for the women's bathroom. Leaving the damn jacket is an appealing option, but it's April and his car keys are in the pocket. Sighing, he pulls out his flask and resigns himself to handling at least three intrusive reporters while he waits.

Contestant number one walks up behind him in less than thirty seconds. Wonderful. She's pretty tall for a woman, slim with black hair.

"What's your number?" she asks, in a posh accent that ticks his radar. The room is loud, and he doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. He has to lean in and shout to be heard.

"Don't you people have spies or hackers or something for that?" he says, and her nose wrinkles at his breath. Ah, great, he just indirectly told a reporter he's day drinking. Three guesses what tomorrow's tabloids are gonna be.

But the woman's eyes don't light up and turn sharply observant like a reporter's would.

She purses her lips and asks, "Who in their right mind needs a spy to retrieve a coat?"

And then it clicks. Weird nose, thin lips, haughty accent.

"Loki?"

"Oh for the love of Höðr." she says, slipping her hand into his suit pocket and digging around. She pulls out a neon orange card.

It's probably a bad thing that he doesn't react at all to her invading his space. He could blame it on the alcohol, but the truth is he didn't feel threatened. It just wouldn't make sense for her to attack him now, surrounded by witnesses and after months of playing nice.

"Did you just ask me out?" he says, and she disappears. Poof, gone.

The crowd mills about, and he's momentarily baffled. He must be more hammered than he thought, if he's blacking out like that. Maybe he grabbed the wrong flask and he's drinking Thor's Vanir rum again. Dumbly, he pulls out his stash and sniffs. Smells like whiskey. He's about to put it back, but then he figures he ought to have a sip to double check. Just to be safe. Yeah, tastes like whiskey too. The container is nearly empty by now, and it's a damn good thing because Loki reappears while he's screwing on the cap and he almost showers her in booze. And his own Belstaff coat.

She holds it out for him, wearing a surly expression. "You ought to have this washed. I identified it by stench alone, once I found the right rack."

"Sure thing, princess." he says, taking it back and tossing it over his arm. "Do you look this way often?"

"Not when I have official business."

"What about when you don't?" he asks, genuinely curious.

Loki's nostrils flare, but her face is stoically blank. "My private life is none of your concern. And, no. I was not asking you out."

She pulls on her coat, a green and black leather monstrosity that hangs off her like a bathrobe. He supposes it would be hard to find clothes that fit when your height changes by eight inches on the fly.

"Shame." Tony says, shrugging, and uncaps the flask again. He'd consider sobering up if she was interested. But she's not, so he might as well.

Loki eyes the booze as he tips it back. Maybe it's her stiff posture, or the awkward stillness of her stance, but once he's done his eyes go right to the fidgeting hand at her side. A manicured nail picks at the scab on her thumb, the fresh cut inflamed and starting to bleed again. He slips the flask in his back pocket and points.

"You want a band-aid for that?"

"A what?"

Tony snorts. For some reason he expected Loki to be more worldly than Thor. Evidently not.

"A bandage? Medical attention?"

Loki sniffs, turning on her heel. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you."

"Let me know if you change your mind, I guess."

"I won't." she says, licking at the cut while she walks away in a coat that now fits just fine.

His eyes fixate on her mouth, and for the first time in his life he's glad his family jewels tend not to work when he's four doubles into a fifth. Because that would be the weirdest, most unwelcome boner of his life.

Tony does get his coat dry cleaned, but not because Loki complained. He does it because she left a recording bug in the lapel and his dry cleaner is a chatty busybody. He likes the idea of Loki listening through twelve hours of Italian arguing just to get to the part where Tony says 'Hey, princess' and cuts the feed.

Two nights after that stunt he comes home tipsy from a press conference to find Loki leaning on his bar in a cocktail dress. She says she's here for a band-aid, but he can't seem to find the scratch, even when he takes all her clothes off and gives her a thorough check up. He fucks the God of Lies, and it's exactly as dangerous as advertised. Because she's freaky, and savage, and secretly shy, and as far as he's concerned that's everything a man could want.

But that's not what really matters, because there are a million ways for genius billionaires to get laid. Here's what does:

Twenty-four hours after she talked her way into his bed, Loki shows up with buckshot in his sternum. Tony picks it out with a Kleenex and tweezers because Loki refuses to go to the lab. He doesn't ask what happened to the other guy.

Forty-eight hours later he has been fabricating for sixty hours straight. Loki breaks into the lab armed with hot wings from Buffalo and cold beer from Berlin. He tempts Tony back to the penthouse with petit fours from Paris and when he goes to drink his nightcap all of the flavors clash. So he stops at two shots and convinces Loki to tire him out instead.

Seventy-two hours after that Thor shows up to give him a piece of his mind. Tony shoves Loki into Bruce's biomaterials freezer and when he lets him out Loki's as blue as a smurf. Two pints of ice cream later, it occurs to him that Loki could have teleported to the penthouse and he'd never have known.

Ninety hours later they celebrate their nine day anniversary like they've been together nine years because neither of them can believe they made it this long. It starts as a joke, and ends with the two of them making out in a shrub in Staten Island hiding from the paparazzi. After downing eighteen bottles of Vodka Loki drunkenly names her breasts Asmund and Astrid, and Tony tells himself not to get attached.

One hundred and two hours after that he stops counting because it's been two weeks, and that calls for a new unit of measure.

All those things go right. They connect, they laugh, and occasionally bicker. It's unreal. Like a cheesy romcom with a perplexing amount of gore. Here's what goes wrong:

Loki comes and goes whenever he pleases and shows up injured half the time. He never says where he's been and he laughs when Tony gets concerned. One day he comes home with cigarette burns on his arm and claims he was just curious. They don't talk about it.

They do the nasty in varying states of inebriation, and one time Tony forgets to use a rubber. He asks Loki if they need a pregnancy test and finds out she has three kids imprisoned on three planets. They don't talk about it.

They have sex in the lab with the door unlocked and on the balcony with helicopters flying overhead. They put all the tabs in all the slots and Loki runs into the bathroom to puke halfway through giving him the best blowjob of his life. They don't talk about it.

Loki insists on silk sheets and gourmet food. She demands Tony's complete attention at all times, and asserts her independence anytime it's in question. But when they fuck his only guidelines are the tension in her spine and the varying looks of wonder and fear on her face. Once her panties hit the floor she never, ever says no.

And that scares the fuck out of him.

By the time he's halfway through the Prose Edda, Tony draws up plans for an intergalactic field trip. It's an exercise in getting ahead of himself, because they haven't talked about the godlings since their pregnancy scare three weeks ago. Unfortunately, he's not that great at turning his brain off. Between worrying about alien invaders and worrying about his worrying, it's a nice change of pace.

He builds himself an EVA suit in a couple days and takes it for a spin in the company pool. Then he makes one for Loki just because he feels like it. Next he tackles light speed travel and Loki's smart enough to know something's up. He corners Tony in the shower that night and even a round of wall sex doesn't distract him. So Tony sits him down on the floor beside the bed and brushes out his hair. It feels like holding a cracked snow globe and watching the white dots settle. Like admiring a tender, beautiful thing and knowing one more shake will shatter it.

"Which kid do you want to get first?" Tony asks, working at a tangle on Loki's neck.

Loki pulls his knees to his chest and hides his face in the gap. Expecting a fight or at least a disarming insult, Tony braces himself for the worst.

What comes is a near silent murmur.

"Hela." Loki whispers. "I want Hela."


	2. Chapter 2

All told they spent the better part of May being flung across the universe in search of Loki's kids. Journey's end finds them latched to the belly of a Cemesian battlecruiser in a stolen atmo shuttle, piggybacking their way home from Shart-elf-hind. Which is the legit name of that realm as far as he is concerned, and Loki can't stop him saying it.

He tried several times during the trip there, but after two months of arguing over Netflix, laundry detergent, and whether or not boar's fat was in any way an acceptable lubricant, Tony's an expert at bickering with Loki. These days he can practically smell a half truth coming off his partner before he even says it, and the little evasions he uses to avoid lying, well he's starting to get the hang of those too.

Sadly he's not the only one showing rapid improvement at boyfriend wrangling. He honestly thought he was going to get dumped the time he lost the Tesseract on Sniffleheim, but Loki decided he'd rather "collect reparations." Which apparently was Asgardian for Tony stealing it back by himself, and then mastering zero gravity blowjobs while Loki read a book. Yeah, not his proudest moment.

Anyway, the point is it's kind of a long time before Tony can do something about he and Loki's communication issues. He's thought about it a lot, and not done all that much. The small size of the shuttle makes alone time rare, which in turn makes serious conversation daunting. If it goes badly, there's no place to hide out until Loki stops fuming.

The situation only gets worse on the planet Molrin, where he discovers Loki doesn't know the word 'rimming.' Practical demonstration seems all-but obligatory. Fun times were had by all, yada yada no big deal. Except that Loki hasn't let Tony top him since. And that's odd because Loki likes to get fucked they way most people like caramel maccchiatos—as often as possible and preferably in the morning. So he assumes he screwed up something and Loki didn't tell him.

Taking all that into account, it's a relief when Loki sits down beside him in the cramped dining booth in the shuttle's kitchen. He's relaxed, or maybe just too tired to be anxious. Still blue and wearing the black tactical suit Tony made for him.

He lets out a soul deep sigh and lays his head back on the seat cushion, careful to maneuver his goat horns between the bench and the wall, and isn't that fucking precious.

It's the little things that get Tony's stomach all gooey. Dumb shit like Loki showing his neck while he's Big Blue or eating peanut butter right out of the jar. Taking-care-of-business Loki is a sight to behold, but now that Fenrir is asleep in the cockpit and the other two are safe in Stark Tower, he's really happy to see the return of feed-me-grapes-like-the-spoiled-boy-I-am Loki. Happy, and horny. Pun intended.

He learned the first time around not to mess with the horns. Or talk about them. Or look at them. They are pretty bad ass though, so now that Loki's eyes are closed Tony can't help but oggle them a bit. He's an opportunist, so sue him. They emerge from the ridge of his eyebrows at a smooth angle, wrapping around his head and circling his ears in sleek curves that remind Tony of a sports car.

He remembers watching Planet Earth a couple nights after sucking off a Jotun for the first time and imagining Loki in a loincloth fighting for dominance. Ridiculous. Also hot.

Tony's a special kind of perv, he's aware, but the idea of Loki ramming his head into some other loser and knocking him around like a rag doll made him smile like a lunatic. Kind of like he's smiling now, caught in the red eyed stare of present moment Loki who is very much not naked and very much not interested in winning Tony's love with primitive displays of manliness. Oh well.

"Problem, sweetheart?" Tony teases. Loki's eyes slide closed again and he grumbles. Nothing coherent, just the usual sour puss don't laugh at me mortal noises. "Yeah, thought so."

The table doesn't give him much room to work, but he isn't about to let an opportunity go to waste. Poking his sleepy boyfriend in the ribs, he lays his head on his shoulder guard and talks into his ear. Loki shivers because Tony leaning on him is one of his kinks. Maybe it's sad that both of them consider loving consensual touch a kink, but that's why it's called a judgement free zone.

"You're tired, I'm horny. Let's make a deal." Tony says.

"I don't recall having to negotiate with you previously." Loki mumbles.

"Yeah, well, you didn't used to have a problem with me taking the lead."

Loki angles another narrowed eyed look at him, like he's considering arguing the point, but thankfully he really is exhausted. Or maybe obliging, whatever, Tony isn't picky.

Loki drags himself up with what looks like a lot of effort and offers Tony a hand. He takes it and does the universally awkward getting-out-of-a-booth-seat wiggle until he's free and, oh, shoved into the kitchen counter. With a hand down his pants. Fuck.

The idea that he is about to turn down a no-strings-attached hand job is unbelievable, but woop there it is. The teenage version of himself will never forgive him, blah blah blah, but come on this is ridiculous.

Loki's just shown him parts of the universe no other human will ever see. He's hacked and twisted and outright broken magic nobody should be able to tamper with. He has fought Beholders, picked through the Marianas Trench lost and found, crossed the fucking river Styx, and climbed the highest mountain in the known universe.

He and Loki have literally dragged each other through stars, around suns, in and out of wormholes like a game of whack-a-mole, and right now Tony just really, really wants to take care of Loki. He wants to tell him it's okay, and well done, and i'm so proud of you, in the only way he knows Loki is willing to hear it. He didn't think it would be that hard. He really should have known better.

Tony maybe allows Loki to rub him off a bit longer than his surprise really warrants. The man has deft hands, fingers just callused enough to drag and warm as bath water in his Jotun form. He knows he's being placated, but Tony never claimed to be a good guy. The man is really intense about it, buttering him up with nice firm tugs and barely there brushes around his balls.

He almost gets away with it too, until he works his other hand in the back of Tony's flight suit to squeeze at his butt and that wakes him up enough to get his brain back online. Someone should give him an award for the effort it takes to put his hands on Loki's chest and push. It's honestly a herculean task, but eventually he pushes hard enough that it would be a little rape-y for Loki to continue, and he withdraws from Tony's pants with a snap of elastic. Huffs like this is all getting a bit tedious for his royal highness.

"You find my services lacking?" Loki growls, face pinched but voice a bit strained. Rejected, maybe. Tony gives him a quick peck on the lips, just because he can't let that stand.

"Almost had me there, but here's how this is supposed to go."

He drags Loki's zipper down and slides his hands back up to grip the collar of his suit. He might make a detour to feel up his chest, but he's not apologizing.

The whole alien gender thing is seriously hot, and after the ice cream he's got a special bond with these boobs. They're broad and flat, not that different from the usual male chesticles, but a bit bigger and a lot softer. Really nice mouth feel without any body hair in the way.

Loki chews his lip when Tony finds the nips and says hello through the stretchy neoprene. Their eyes meet and Loki can't disguise his gasp as anything else.

He pulls Loki back toward the sleeping quarters by the collar, kissing all the way. The suit has loops near the top for just such an occasion, although he might have told Loki they were for holding armor or something. The backwards two-step through the hatch is awkward, but it gets Loki unbalanced enough for Tony to get his back on the mattress, so he'll consider that a bonus.

Ye olde pout makes a comeback once Loki realizes what's happening, so Tony kicks up the momentum and hops aboard the Jotun express. He reaches down to unclip the belt and it fucking disappears, along with all of Tony's clothes.

Curiously, the neoprene tac suit stays lovingly sculpted around Loki's assets, so Tony takes the hint and spreads the front open. His fingers brush symmetrical rows of raised skin as he pulls the fabric further apart, careful to hold it tight so Loki's breasts pop out all cute and needy.

It makes Loki look down, those red eyes strangely vacant as he watches Tony thumbing circles around his nubs. The look might have discouraged him, but after a minute of rather luxurious licking the little buds start going a darker, redder blue and Tony settles in. The last time they did this, Loki's nips morphed to a dusky purple when he was aroused, which is maybe the strangest thing Tony has ever learned about a partner. Mood ring titties, praise Jesus.

Loki seems to know he's lost, because he shrugs the top half of the suit off and puts a hand in Tony's hair, watches him make trips along the roadmap of white lines with his lips. They run from Loki's throat all the way down to the groove of his hips, more of a smooth slope in this form than the cut muscles he has as an Aesir. Tony dances his nails down the middle just to see the way the lines stiffen and rise.

Tony loiters at the waistband a while, deciding whether to venture lower or just leave a hickey as a souvenir.

The growing bulge in Loki's pants makes up his mind. He gives him one hard bite for the road and crawls back up to Central Command. The move earns him a strangled complaint.

"You demand my attention, rebuff my efforts, and now mock my approval of yours." Loki says, "Remind me why I should share this bed?"

"Uh, it's called a negotiation? Offer, counter offer, happy compromise?" Tony blurts out, maybe a little smug with the indigo flush around Loki's ears.

He's ready to carry on bullshitting when Loki plants his hands on Tony's hips and turns them over. He fights it, but Loki pins his arms above his head one handed, and fuck he forgot how hot it is when Loki turns that inhuman strength against him. He's so careful most of the time that it's easy to forget.

"In that case, consider this my counter offer."

And then Loki's free hand starts peeling off his pants like he's George RR Martin writing the next GoT novel. It's barely even an exaggeration, what with the absolutely maddening reveal of Loki's stiff cock, inch by inch until it's hanging there taunting him while Tony's face is so, so far away. Briefly he regrets being a tease, because he adores sucking cock. Especially Loki's cock.

He considers safewording just to get his hands back, but the thought dies along with the rest of his brain at the warm, slick sensation of Loki seating himself on Tony's leg. Fuck he's wet, oh shit, he was not prepared for that. Loki hums, chewing his lips like he's really enjoying himself, and ruts into Tony's thigh.

Dragginh his lower lip between his teeth, Loki uses his free hand to press his dick into Tony's thigh and fucks it. Shit, he wants that hand somewhere else. This is torture, he should have taken the handjob. Seriously, what kind of idiot looks a gift jerk in the mouth.

"Fuck, come on." Tony mumbles, dizzy, trying to think straight despite the constant not quite touch of Loki's leg.

"Make an offer."

"Whatever you want."

"Be specific, love." Loki rasps, and fuck that's the first time. Tony's dazed, definitely a little manic, but he's absolutely positive that's the first time he's ever heard Loki use a pet name without an edge of snark.

"Wanna fuck you."

"Well I wanted to sleep, but now you've gotten me in a state." Loki whispers, "I think I am owed a favor."

"Anything." Tony promises, knowing what an unbelievably stupid offer it is, but finding he's sincere in it. Loki used a pet name, all bets are off.

"We will have to work on your negotiating." Loki purrs and releases Tony's arms.

Loki presses a thumb to Tony's lips, and the smell of both his sexes knocks him for a second. Then Loki shoves the finger in his mouth and all he thinks about is sucking. Maybe it's not the dick he was hoping for, but maybe he can give Loki ideas. Loki's gaze locks on his mouth and he would smile if he wasn't busy being a fucking genius, oh and deep-throating the finger just in case Loki forgot he can do that.

"Open me up with that blasted mouth and you may do as you wish." Loki groans, flopping on the bed. Hands clasped on his stomach, Loki blinks up at him as though he hadn't been humping Tony's leg like an animal five seconds ago. It shouldn't be cute, but ok, it's pretty cute. Bratty, like Loki can be when the mood strikes. Everything about the pose drips confident sex appeal, but Tony notices how he keeps his ankles crossed like he can't quite manage to put himself on display.

"Deal." he says, and seals it with a playful bite to Loki's foot. He shouts, kicking Tony in the neck. They exchange childish grins until Loki nudges him with a toe.

"Go on."

Tony pinches his butt and ducks away before the retaliatory smack can land.

The mattress squeaks when he leans off to rummage through his travel bag. It's an unforgivable mess, so he has to throw bundles of wrinkled clothes out on the floor just to see what he's doing.

He leaves the lube for once, they are definitely not gonna need it tonight, but a condom is probably a good idea. He never did clarify Loki's role in the making of the godlings, and the idea of persuading Loki to pee on a stick in a Planned Parenthood waiting room is deterrent enough.

While he's rummaging for the little square packets that inevitably land at the very bottom of the bag he finds a travel sized bottle of lotion and snags it too, just in case. Tony doesn't actually use lotion, but Loki gets dry skin on his knees and elbows and apparently Tony is smitten enough to toss a bottle in his bag just because Loki might forget. Which is honestly just gross. So domestic.

By the time he crawls back in bed his partner is fidgeting impatiently, his body tense and shimmery with sweat. One hand is soothing his dick with infrequent tugs, but otherwise his whole attention is on Tony, who sits on his feet and shuffles until Loki's butt fits nicely between his legs. He takes in the tempting sight of Loki curled up on his back, his face framed by dark hair and topped off rather majestically by the horns.

Tony almost inhales the condom packet he's trying to tear open with his teeth. Somehow the rubber makes it on his dick, but there is no grace involved. He's too distracted by the feeling of Loki's overheated body to be suave, too entranced by the feeling of his ass rutting against Tony's cock and the sex drunk look on his face.

Shoves Loki's knees to his chest, he folds him almost in two so his hips are at a good angle and his labia spread open and quiver at the sudden cold. The room echoes with Loki's voice as he presses his lips to the the slit and follows the sensitive folds to where they wrap under and around that beautiful cock. He inhales the scent and falls in love.

Loki doesn't have balls in this form, so Tony throws a half second memorial in their honor. It's not a very sincere send off given that they will be back soon, and that they died for a worthy cause. That cause being the inhumanly smooth slip n' slide that he's about to ride with his tongue. He's a pioneer in an alien vagina, and he's about to explore it in the name of bisexuals everywhere. One small lick for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Loki is honestly perfect. Covered in fine, feather-soft peach fuzz and dripping wet. Tony pets him, gently runs a finger along the seam and circles his hole. Loki's dick swells above his opening, right where his clit is when he's feeling feminine, and the meeting of the two is so smooth that Tony can't resist. He licks a wide stripe along Loki's hole and then right up his dick.

Loki keens, curls his fingers in Tony's hair and pulls him onto his dick. It surprises him, but he manages to drag in air through his nose and swallows, allows Loki to guide him deeper until soft pubic hair tickles his nose. He lets experience take over, lets his mouth become a tight, wet hole for Loki to fuck and gets lost in the familiar light-headed rush of sucking cock.

The noises they make are obscene and getting louder as he gags on Loki's erection and massages his entrance with slick, broad fingers. When he tries to pull away Loki lets him, sighing happily and scratching fingers through his hair. He rests his head on Loki's leg and watches his own finger slide ever so slightly in and back out while the pretty white lights dissipate.

As soon as he can see straight he goes back in, runs his hands up and down Loki's legs and stomach while he makes his momma proud. By the time he's done Loki is soaked down there, pliant and so loose that Tony's fingers practically fall in. He gets two fingers in and excavates, curls them up and tries different places.

Loki winces, his hands in the sheets again. Tony pauses. His partner chews his cheek like words are fighting to get out, but he stays still, doesn't safeword. Tony wraps his free hand around Loki's dick and keeps trying, gently presses up and in until Loki jerks, his eyes fluttering shut and his hole clenching around Tony's fingers like a vice.

"Easy, Lokes. Relax." Tony reminds him, keeps his tone chiding because Loki won't accept the reassurances Tony wants to give him.

There's so much he wants to say that he knows will not comfort Loki. Mostly it's the usual stuff, the things anyone would say like 'this is gonna feel awesome' and 'I want to make you come.' But there's also darker stuff that bubbles up from the scant details he knows about Loki's past. Phrases like 'it's okay if you don't like this' and 'you can say no, i won't be mad.'

Maybe one day they'll get there, but it's not tonight. He makes do with a gentle reminder and repeats the stroke, adds a little more pressure and watches Loki roll his hips, watches him process the feeling and inhale deeply. Tony walks his fingers over the bundle of nerves, tries to make it as smooth and sweet as he can and Loki pushes back into Tony's hand.

"There." he says, voice like gravel. Tony curls his fingers on that spot and sets up a rhythm, careful but not gentle and Loki curses long and loud. "Yes, like that, like that."

Tony tightens the hand around Loki's dick and treats him to a smooth, toe curling pull while his fingers brush and grind inside him. It's hard to keep up while lying on his stomach, so he clambers back up to his knees. He has to pause for a bit to get his balance and Loki grumbles at the interruption. That more than anything restores some confidence, and when they start up again it's with a lot more enthusiasm.

Self control isn't really their virtue, so maybe it's not surprising how quickly he reduces Loki to a writhing pool of want, hands clawing at his shoulders and legs clenching around his waist. It's still flattering though, and Tony might preen a bit too much at the way Loki's eyes bore into his and plead for more, harder, there, yes.

He's getting close, Tony can tell, and he lets the hand not buried inside Loki wander up his gorgeous torso. He hisses at the loss on his cock, but Tony doesn't relent. He wants Loki to come just from his fingers, wants to find out what his body can do. Running his free hand over flat breasts, he pinches a nipple and smiles at the way Loki lurches, pleads.

He drags his thumb over the smooth space between Loki's boobs and presses his fingers into the ridged, raised skin around the Jotun lines. Just like that Loki comes, one of those sudden orgasms that seems to shake his whole body apart.

He moans low in his throat and grinds into Tony's hand, shamelessly leaking clear, silky stripes onto his stomach. He soothes Loki through it, massaging his hips and slowing his thrusts as he comes down. Tony pulls out, cups his hand over Loki's mound and presses a little to ground him, maybe help with the feeling of emptiness that Tony always dreads after getting fucked.

"Tony" he pants.

"Yeah." Tony hums, because yeah, that was pretty great.

"More. Again."

"Yeah, yeah okay."

Wild black hair fans out around Loki's face, his flushed neck and half lidded eyes seemingly bright next to the darkness. There are bits of white tangled in his hair and it takes Tony a moment to notice the deep rips in the sheet where Loki's horns shredded it. Jesus fuck that is sexy.

Loki tugs him down by the ears and they kiss. Hips thrusting rhythmically, he grinds sweet little circles that make them both groan and Tony fumbles for the lotion. He had one other thing he wanted to do tonight, and maybe after that rager of an orgasm Loki will let him.

See, he's had a lot of time to think about that first time Loki let him touch his blue da ba dee, and he has some ideas. A hypothesis about the Jotun lines that is really hard to test without Loki going blue again. He asked him about them the first time, and regretted it instantly when Loki quietly admitted that he didn't know their purpose. Or really anything else about Jotuns.

Last time he let that one go, but Loki seems pretty obliging at the moment so Tony figures it's harmless to multi-task a bit and do some science while also giving Loki more awesome orgasms. It's just good time management. Shame he can't use this as an example the next time Pepper decides to lecture him about it.

He squirts a generous pool of lotion on Loki's belly and they both chuckle a little at the gross noise. With two hands he spreads it around until it thins into a dull shine that helps his hands glide smoothly, lets him work his thumbs into sore muscles and sensitive nerves. Loki hums, which Tony decides is his favorite Loki sound. For now. It's hard to choose just one.

He spreads his hands over his abdomen, brushing his thumbs up the grooves between raised white lines and stroking. Loki's breath hitches when he does that, so he starts over at his hip and follows them back up, not touching the peaked edges, just pressing and caressing in between them.

He doesn't make it all the way up because Loki squeezes his legs together and his knees curl into his chest, nailing Tony in the chin. Youch, not cool. Worth it, though. It is so fucking worth it just for the moment of stunned wonder on Loki's face when he puts his legs back down and stares up, panting, bewildered, and turned on.

Before Loki can say something and ruin the moment, Tony grabs his shins and pulls him into his lap. Loki watches, a little shaken, while Tony touches his lines again. Their eyes meet as Loki arches into the feeling and lets out a lovely, deep groan.

"How does it feel?"

"I don't-" Loki says, swallows, "It is strange."

Tony's got a colony of butterflies in his stomach just listening to Loki talk about how he feels. Out loud, in English. He dots more lotion on each thumb and runs them up and back down once more, feeling like his heart is cracked open and bleeding everywhere at the blissful expression it earns him. Loki climbs into his lap and wraps his lanky arms around Tony's shoulders. Kisses him.

Loki trails his fingers down Tony's chest and tugs at his cock, gives it a few spine tingling pulls, and he starts to fill out. He's like a furnace in this form, and his hand leaves a burning warmth everywhere it touches him. Then Loki holds his cock by the base and lines him up and Tony breaks the kiss. He can't stop himself from looking down between their heaving chests and watching Loki sink onto his cock.

Fuck, it's so warm. Tight and absolutely scorching. He can feel Loki forcing himself to relax around it, doing that deep, measured breathing thing that Tony's always giving him shit about. He slides his eyes closed and sucks at Tony's collarbone, licks at the skin and bites when he pushes a little lower.

It's the most tender fucking thing anyone has ever done to him, so good that he feels like the walls are closing in and he's dying. This is it, this is where death finally catches him. Ladies and Gentlemen, here lies the great Tony Stark, genius inventor, who died running like a coward from a somewhat reformed super villain after coming prematurely in his delicious alien pussy. Go quietly, comrad, into that good night.

He's absently stroking Loki's lines while he panics and doesn't even notice he's doing it until Loki shudders, and holds his face like a chick flick. Which is even more alarming than his close encounter of the premature kind.

"I feel you Tony." Loki whispers, wincing like it's a struggle to make audible sounds. "The lines they-" he stutters, licks his lip, "they allow me to sense your emotions."

"No fucking way." Tony rasps, wondering what the hell Loki will make of him, if he'll be repelled by Tony's ridiculous attachment.

Loki's shattered expression gives nothing away, it's just a wash of surprise and glazed eyes, maybe a bit of concern in the tilt of his frown. He wraps a hand around the back of Tony's neck and rests their foreheads together, and it is such a fucking Norse god way of comforting someone that it makes his traitorous heart wrench and flood with affection. Soon Loki's kissing the side of his mouth, pressing his chest flush into Tony's and taking his dick to the hilt.

Clearly they both need a minute, so Tony tilts Loki's chin down and sucks him into a biting kiss that's raw and intense and perfect. He scrapes his nails down Tony's back and moans into the kiss, grabs him roughly around the chin and presses their lips together even harder. Tony's fingers glide up Loki's spine, feeling his quivering muscles and strong bones.

After a moment of hesitation he digs his fingers into the Jotun lines he finds there and follows the winding path around boney shoulder blades and up to silky hair.

Loki moans long, loud alien curses, breaking the kiss and muttering them right into Tony's ear while his body clenches tight around his dick. He fucks himself shallowly, overwhelmed and out of control, angling his trembling hips to get the right friction and grinding hard when he finds it, again and again until he can't anymore. A helpless noise escapes his throat, wordlessly begging Tony to take over and he finds he can't say no.

With a slight bounce Tony rolls them back onto the mattress, throws Loki's knees over his shoulders and thrusts, fast and hard so their hips collide with a wet smack. Loki gasps and arches, grinds up forcefully like he's trying to get deeper. Tony grabs his hips and sets up a punishing rhythm, slams into him and tries to brush against that spot that makes him twist and shout.

Shit, it's so good, so different from the other ways they've done this. It's not tight like his ass, doesn't seem to suck Tony down and rip the pleasure out of him. Instead it envelops him, molds around his cock and takes whatever he gives. It's not even the same as when Loki's female, because he only does that when the memories are too much and he needs Tony to anchor him with something aching and sweet.

He doesn't know why it helps Loki to be certain things at certain times, doesn't know why Loki chose tonight to let Tony do this to him. Because all games aside, this was Loki's choice.

He could have shifted back to Aesir in the kitchen, or in the cockpit, but instead he's laying under Tony in the skin he was born in, accepting thrusts that plow deep, spread him open rough and fast and not at all sweet. He's letting Tony bite his lips and rub his fingers hard into the lines that betray his life's great lie, keening and begging him not to stop.

He is so hard for Loki now, pounding relentlessly even though he's running out of energy, even though his knees are warning him that he's not as young as he used to be. He wraps his hand around the base of Loki's cock and rubs his thumb over the sensitive skin below, a delicate, swollen spot near where they're connected, where his cock is sliding in and out of Loki and lighting him up on the inside.

His other hand plays at the white lines on Loki's thighs, stroking and apparently channeling his lust into Loki's mind. He presses hard, wanting Loki to feel what he does to him, how the perpetual motion of his mind grinds to nothing whenever Loki gasps, the way his gut clenches when their eyes meet.

He slides back down into Loki's gorgeous folds and buries his face in his neck, licking and kissing and sucking on his ear. His fingers dig into Loki's ass, spreading and kneading those amazing ridges so Loki will sense Tony's growing attachment to him, so he'll understand how the fear of losing Loki makes him feel like a tiny spec on the edge of an enormous, unfathomable universe.

Loki moans, squeezes around him and that's it, he can't hold on any longer. He pumps his partner's cock in time with his final uncoordinated thrusts, mimicking the brutal, fast jerks that he always catches Loki giving himself right before he comes. Loki lurches, throws his head back and lets out a choked, broken cry. Tony strokes him through it, squeezes Loki's dick and coaxes as much pleasure as he can while having his own mind blowing orgasm.

His release shakes him down, reduces him to his base components and rebuilds him. He comes back drowning in Loki's sweet kisses, lips against chapped lips, and his consciousness grows from there, a malleable shell wrapped around a core that has shards of Loki stuck in it now. Its raw, unexpected, and when he draws away Loki's eyes are wet, thin tears crawling down his cheeks.

"You enjoy this body." he rasps, "You… you genuinely desire it."

"Of course, Loki." Tony says, blunt, stunned. He likes any version of Loki he can get his hands on.

Loki sobs, curls onto his side and weeps, and Tony's not sure what he did wrong. He's not sure what to do, whether to give him space or hold him down or grab a towel and clean him up. Loki reaches blindly for him and Tony lays along his back, high up on the bed so he can bury his face in Loki's hair and wrap himself over Loki's back and shoulders despite the height difference. He lays the flat of his hand on his sternum, right over his heart, and Loki covers it with his own, laces their fingers and cries.

He talks too, talks like he'll die if he doesn't lance this wound. Tony only understands half of it, partly because Loki's voice is cracking and also because he's switching randomly between languages like he's not sure where he is or who he has to be right now.

He babbles about a woman who loved him, or who thought she did but only really loved a part of him. He recalls the births of his children, confesses with a brittle smile how they came out blue and healthy and perfect and he hated them, called them monsters. The only monster in the room was him, a man who destroyed half a planet of beings whose bodies were created to love, were made to feel and share feelings from one mind to another.

Tony doesn't know what to do about any of it, so he just holds him. He holds him while his skin crackles and changes shapes and he howls in a kind of pain Tony does understand because it's his pain too.

It's Afghanistan and nukes flying through wormholes and Obie standing over him holding his heart, it's the pain of someone trying to be good enough and always falling short. Remaking themselves again and again and again until they're just a shell full of other people's expectations.

He waits for Loki to wear himself out, presses his mouth into his hair and smells his shampoo. When he extracts himself Loki fits perfectly in his arms. Her shoulders are small and her hand is thin and delicate in his, her skin smooth and pale ivory.

He fights the bedding and covers them in the comforter. Grabs the cleaner of the two pillows and lays on his back, pulls Loki under his arm and tucks her head in the hollow of his shoulder. The change in shape did nothing to fix her hair, so he picks at the tangles with his fingers until he can run them all the way through. Manicured nails play with the sparse patch of hair on his chest, and it tickles so he flicks her on the cheek.

"Be nice, or you'll have to beg for it next time." he teases, although it's a pathetic attempt, completely toothless.

"I would enjoy seeing you try." she drawls cooly.

They lay there cuddling for a long minute while Tony mulls over the tangled, amorphous feeling in his gut. Loki snuggles closer and closer until eventually she's just laying right on top of him, pretense gone.

Tony runs his hand down her spine and marvels at the feel of her round, smooth hips, the way she hums and basks in the contact. Finally his thoughts slot together, and he cups her jaw in his hand, runs a thumb over a dark, perfectly angled eyebrow and remembers thick, powerful horns.

"You're more than how you look." he says.

"Astutely observed. Will you next tell me that fish swim and birds fly?"

"I mean it. I don't want to shape you into whatever suits me or, or fucking hell, my agenda." Tony says.

Loki bites her lip, and even if the rest of her face is stoic Tony knows he got through. He runs his thumb over the spot Loki bit, and kisses her lightly. She keeps her eyes closed, answers him from right over his mouth.

"I know, Anthony. I know."

He smothers Loki shamelessly. Lays all over her in his sweaty, pale-assed glory and kisses her until she's tired of kissing him. Holds her until she's annoyed and superior and demanding he take a shower.

Soon they will have to get up. They will have to separate themselves and scrounge for clean clothes. They will eat food, wake up the puppy, and take him to the penthouse. Soon time will move on and new problems will reveal themselves, so right now he soaks up every second Loki will allow him, and that's enough. It's so much more than enough.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony knows he fucked up when, two days after explaining Midgardian marriage customs, Loki presents him with a pair of matching cock rings in a velvet box.

There was a rather prolonged moment where he could have said something not insulting or rude like 'yes' or 'thank you' or 'are you unsatisfied with my performance, sweetheart?' and cleared up the misunderstanding later. But he is a fucking moron, so instead he laughs in Loki's face and asks where the real ones are.

Apparently this isn't a scenario Loki prepared for, because instead of smirking playfully and making a dig at Tony's refractory period his face falls in the most heartbreaking expression Tony's ever seen and he fucking vanishes.

It's while he is sitting there, absorbing what just happened and trying to keep Jori out of the ficus that Sesame Street lays codifies his mistake. Think Before You Act. It's not a fun rule, but he has a kind of intuition that it's going to be important.

Maybe it's because Loki's sudden departure leaves him to wrangle the shape shifting hell spawn by himself, or maybe its because Big Bird keeps reiterating the lesson over and over again on TV, but after thirty minutes Tony is ready to make reparations. He knows he can't find Loki if he doesn't want to be found, but he has Jarvis do a global scan anyway.

When lunchtime rolls around J informs him that Loki isn't detectable anywhere on Earth, and Tony starts to get properly upset. He wants to rocket off and look for him but he knows it's pointless.

The little bits are hungry, so he packs that impulse in a mental box and thaws some rabbits for the menagerie. He tries not to think about which of the take out menus Loki would have chosen, which leads to him staring at the mess of greasy pamphlets long enough that Hela picks up her phone and orders Thai.

Not that Hela doesn't like rabbits. Tony still has nightmares about the time he watched her split one with Fenrir, but thankfully she thinks forks are amusing so most days it's people food for her. He's about to pat her head and give her a gold star when she opens her mouth and ruins it.

"Are you and dad getting a divorce?" she asks through her nose, like one of the insufferable Disney idols in those movies she watches on her phone while the rest of them are trying to enjoy a perfectly good family game night.

"Artistic differences, sweet cheeks." Tony says, shucking off the cloud of depression that he's totally not slipping into and falling back on that snarky businessman voice. "Soon to be resolved."

She twirls one of her purple extensions through her finger and chews her lip, scrutinizing him. Tony's gut clenches because there's so much Loki in that expression that it brings back all the awesome pangs of guilt and regret he's been pushing down all morning. Hela honestly, unironically rolls her eyes and Tony briefly feels sorry for the college professors that he inflicted with his presence at her age.

"I want the Maserati." she drawls, blinks and then asks. "What is 'resolved'?"

"Uh, fixed? Determined, decided."

"Oh." she says, "So you and dad will be fixed soon."

"Sure hope so." he says, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Also, we aren't married. Divorce comes after marriage, not before."

"This realm is strange to me." Hela says. The sentence is kind of a catchphrase of hers, one that she seems able to bend into a thousand different meanings. Right now it feels like she's saying _i see no difference between marriage and your relationship_ and Tony silently agrees.

"No Maserati. Finish your Calculus book and I'll consider giving you the Jag." he says and goes to get the rodents out of the microwave.

"I do not like the Jag." she pouts, pointedly going back to her Sudoku and not the pristine textbook on the coffee table, which he supposes is the end of that.

By sunset Tony gets tired of arguing with NASA about whether or not Stark Industries has clearance to launch the L.O.K.I locator satellite he built during nap time and just tells his team to go ahead. All three of his phones start screaming after that, so he throws the kids in the limo and takes them to Burger King. Fen and Jori predictably spend the whole ride back complaining about everything from the meat being cooked to the strange white things on the bun, but Tony's happy just to be out of the tower. Besides, the Real Monsters of New York are gonna have to start embracing the culture. Apparently he's buying enough frozen mammals every week to feed the whole Central Park Zoo reptile house, if the guy at the pet store had his facts straight. The more you know.

Bath time is traumatic, as usual. Between Jori's completely rational fear of water and the flashbacks that Tony gets when he holds the kid down in the tub, it's everyone's favorite pastime. Somehow they all survive. The kid might have soap scum on his scales later, but that's a tomorrow problem. Hela takes pity on him after that and does the whole tucking in rigmarole. He almost wants to give her the Maserati after that, because story time is usually Loki's show and Tony just can't. He decides it's cheaper to pour himself a highball. Though not by much, given his taste in whiskey.

Poetically, its right when he decides not to wait up that Loki reappears. It's the middle of the night and Tony is sitting in bed toeing off his socks when Loki walks through a wall in full battle regalia, covered in blood, with handcuffs dangling from one wrist. _Another great day in the asylum_ , he thinks, nods a lazy hello, and slips into the sheets.

"Should I call the lawyers?" he asks.

"Is American penal code enforced during an apocalypse?" Loki replies, stone cold. Tony rolls over and checks the floor-to-ceiling window. Yup, that's New York. Still standing.

"I'm gonna guess no." he slurs.

"Then no, you do not need to call the lawyers."

Heavy footsteps trudge to the bathroom and he hears Loki take a leak with the door open. Classy.

It's a shame, because Tony really was going to apologize as soon as he saw him. For the first twelve hours he was the poster boy of sheepish contrition. Unfortunately Loki came back at three in the morning and Tony's remorse grew some claws around ten. Besides, why should he apologize? Sure, he laughed at Loki, but tough shit, it was funny. They would have cleared it up in five minutes if he wasn't dating the boogie man. Maybe his reaction wasn't very nice, but that wasn't an excuse for Loki to pull this disappearing act bullshit.

It's for the best that they ignore each other for now, which is what Tony intends to do, but apparently that's not in the stars. He tracks the movement behind him by the slaps of Loki's leather coat against his boots, and then by the sight of them when his boyfriend rounds the corner to Tony's side of the bed.

The cuffs rattle when Loki spins his hand in a circle and pulls the Tesseract out of thin air. Wonderful.

"Thought we put that back on Asgard." Tony says, wary.

"We did." Loki replies, which doesn't tell him anything. Then he bends over to slide the drawer of Tony's bedside table open with a bruised and bloody hand.

"Hey, that's not a sex toy, put it on your side. My side is the fun side. Only fun stuff goes there."

Loki does not put it on his side. He closes the drawer with a snap and pets Tony's hair. It feels nice, which pisses Tony off.

"Hey, don't be nice. I'm mad at you. I can't be mad if you're nice."

"I am needed on Asgard." Loki says, which is also not an answer.

Loki presses a kiss to Tony's forehead, and that is when he really gets concerned. Suddenly the whole cock ring debacle seems stupid. It hits him that he missed Loki today. That it felt wrong to do stuff without Loki there doing it better than him. More than wanting to punch him, he just wants him to stay. He might say that out loud, he's not sure what his mouth is doing.

"I will miss you also, Anthony." Loki whispers. Red flag. Red flag.

"Hey no, stay. I'm sorry, okay? I actually am sorry." Tony says, trying to sit up despite the room wobbling. He wishes he wasn't drunk right now. Well, ok, maybe he just wishes Loki wasn't seeing him drunk. He hasn't gotten this fucked up since the Palladium poisoning, and now he remembers why. It makes people look at him like his mere proximity depresses them. Loki lays him back down and smooths out the blanket.

"I will return." he promises, and something about his tone itches at Tony's brain, but it doesn't really connect.

"Course you will. You always come back." the alcohol blurts out, thank you triple malt truth serum. Tony hedges. "Skip the boring part. Play hookie. We'll paint each other's nails and have a pillow fight. It'll be fun."

Loki looks out the window. Sighs. Then he seems to decide he's had enough and starts to stand. Tony changes tacks, misses his sleeve and grabs a coat tail instead.

"You need a shower. Hop in, I'll make you a sandwich."

His partner sighs again and lays his hand on Tony's eyes. He thinks it's a weird thing to do, until Loki says _sleep_ and Tony can't think anymore.

In the morning he wakes up feeling like hot roadkill. The sheets are sweaty, his hair looks like it's been frozen mid-jump in a bouncy castle, and his breath could kill small insects.

"Animal House protocol, Jarvis." Tony croaks.

"Right away, sir."

The curtains close over the windows, thank fuck, and the shooting pain in his eyeballs lessons from excruciating to agonizing. The AC kicks on and after a while one of his roombas putters in with a bottle of water and some aspirin. Even when he kind of wants to kill himself, Tony has to admit that his genius knows no bounds. He pops pills like they're tic-tacs and takes his time with the water. Because water blows and humanity should really have made it obsolete by now.

When the image of Loki in handcuffs comes to his mind, he assumes he had a really pathetic dream. The blood is new, but now that he's banged Papa Smurf the standard kinks seem kind of tame. Not all that alarming. So far it's a pretty standard post-fuck up morning until he reaches into the bedside table looking for his glasses and the drawer glows.

"Ah shit." he groans, and pulls a pillow over his face until he falls asleep again.

The extra sleep does wonders, but this day needs a miracle just to be palatable. Jori does indeed have itchy white residue on his scales that Tony has to sponge off like a fucking nursemaid. Normally this is the kind of shit that would send him running to the workshop, but before he even gets his shoes on he realizes he can't do that. With Thor doing Thor stuff and Steve's gang of misfit assassins in hiding, it's just him and the rugrats in the Tower.

Turns out superhuman nannies aren't a category on Craigslist so he puts on his sweatpants and turns on Jersey Shore. The little biters barely understand normal English, so the accents probably make it child safe. Even scrubbing a shedding anaconda with a Shamwow beats thinking about Loki, so by the end Tony is actually kind of glad he did it. Besides, Jori's a sweet kid. Says please and thank you and even puts clothes on when he turns into a real boy, unlike Fenrir. Tony tells him he is a good boy in Asgardian, because it's true, but also because he realizes he doesn't know the word for son .

Things are kind of okay for about five minutes. He thinks he can do this, can learn to be the one waiting and quietly freaking out until the crisis is over. Then Channel 2 plays an emergency bulletin from London and Tony takes it all back. Waiting is pointless, Loki is a bastard, and Tony is going to motherfucking London in a fast suit. He tosses Hela the keys to the quinjet and pulls the bedside drawer right off the tracks.

The cube shines in the drawer, pure and dazzling and totally out of place in the middle of he and Loki's collection of flavored condoms and butt plugs. There's the instinctive impulse to take it apart, to reverse engineer the laws of physics and rewrite the world's list of Tony Stark's most amazing feats. Then there's the crazed blue cracks he remembers corrupting Loki's eyes just before he threw him out the window. Then there's the unexpected flashback from the blue light bathing his arms and he spends the next twenty minutes getting waterboarded in a cave in Afghanistan. When he finally claws his way back to the present the sun has gone down, and his only company are a hole ripped in his shirt and a very broken bedside lamp. He slams the drawer closed and the impact leaves a dent in the drywall.

When he forces himself to return to the living room Doc McStuffins is on TV, but Thor's talking head on a tablet informs him that the battle was won and Earth is safe. Hela gives him a pitying look that makes him want to throw _himself_ out the window and he gets started on dinner. When his sorry attempt at cooking is ready, he dishes up five plates and rallies the troops. Gets them all in Jotun skins while he is at it, because he wants to have an actual family dinner where people talk instead of bark and hiss. The boys eat their gerbils without complaint and chatter nonstop about becoming doctors like the girl on TV. Tony would normally mark that as a miraculous occasion on par with the Padres winning the playoffs, but tonight he barely manages to nod along.

He feels physically incapable of moving his eyes from the landing pad on the balcony, and he finds himself quizzing the boys on vocabulary long after everyone is done eating. The end of dinner feels like a ticking clock. He convinces himself Loki just got held up hugging it out with Thor or something. He just needs more time. After forty-five minutes of inane questions Hela proclaims Tony's sudden interest in pop quizzes "strange" and storms off to curl her spider webs or whatever she does in her room. He feels ancient after that tirade, and when he turns his attention back to the table he feels like a bastard.

The boys look freaked out, staring up at him and fidgeting in their chairs like they would bolt if they had anywhere else to go. He feels like his dad and that is the last thing he needs right now. Jarvis informs him that it is bed time and he's never been more relieved in his life. They run off to change clothes, practically jubilant that Tony skipped baths all together, and he has his head in his hands before the pattering feet reach the hallway.

He knows something is wrong. He doesn't need a reason, or a news report, or a cosmic cube. He just knows. Then Thor shows up, and for once in his life Tony wishes he was wrong.

Thor doesn't stay long. He's a god, he's got more important places to be. Aether to hide. Grief to unleash at the mourning banquet Loki would resent Thor throwing in his honor. He just stopped by because Tony is a friend. He does the hand-neck-forehead-touch thing and Tony has to fake a coughing fit to get out of it with his dignity intact. He tells Point Break to get lost and Thor says that without his brother he already is. The goddamn literal Asgardian language must not have any idioms at all.

Loki's food is untouched and cold on the table, and Tony can't make himself go near it. He has a stand-off with it, calls it all the rude names he wants to call Loki, but it doesn't judge him for sucking in deep, meditative breaths, or for nearly shoving knuckles into his eye sockets when they start leaking anyway. He sits on the coffee table because he can't make it to the sofa, and when he's overcome with the need to punch something he cracks the glass in half.

Fury shows up around midnight to bitch him out about arguing with NASA. Whatever, it's not like he's going to do it again. The One Eye Spy cleans up the plates like it's nothing, like Tony hasn't been psyching himself up to do it for four hours, and even fucking loads the dishwasher. Tony worries that one day this will all be normal to him and yells at Fury to come get his tumbler. Fury tells him to go fuck himself, and Tony silently shouts back that he might just do that if there wasn't a goddamn space weapon mixed in with his lube. Also if there was a single dildo in this house that won't remind him of Loki. Which there isn't. He falls asleep with his nose buried in the back of the couch and wakes up in bed with his shoes off. He doesn't question why Nick Fury of all people attended his pity party because he honestly can't bring himself to care.

That's how things go for the rest of the month. Stuff needs to get done, so Tony does it. He moves the essential tech up to the living room because he can't bring the kids into the lab, and just tinkers with whatever R&D sends him. It's easily the most productive month he's had since the Mark II, and he doesn't even remember what all he did. There are no manic creations, no late nights or new elements. He's just keeping his hands busy. Pepper and Rhodey come and go, messes get made and cleaned up and remade.

At some point Natasha drops in to tell him he's pathetic and clean out her metaphorical locker, and she ends up staying a few days. Kicks his ass in the gym like she thinks he's going to snap out of it. Nothing helps, because it doesn't really happen to him, he's just around for it. The worst part, like actually the worst, is that a shattered portion of him doesn't believe Loki is dead. Thor's told him twice now, explained the whole affair with the elves and Jane and the aether cloud, and a demented voice in the back of Tony's mind just refuses to believe it. Not possible, it says, not his Loki.

He knows he is in denial. He knows he will continue to feel like his life is draining out of his feet until he accepts that Loki is not coming back. But then there are the facts, and the facts don't add up. Loki left at ten in the morning and was missing until Thor found him in Norway three hours later and supposedly supervised him until he fell to the elves. And yet, the traitorous part of Tony insists, Loki was in the tower at three in the morning, he stayed for eight minutes and thirteen seconds and the security cameras caught him. He kissed Tony with solid, non-illusory lips and left the Tesseract in an unlocked drawer like a pair of sunglasses. Loki had been bloodied, which means he'd already fought someone and decided to go back for more.

However he spins it, Loki was doing a lot more than he was supposed to that night. At several points he obviously slipped Thor's watch, which wasn't exactly a challenge, but was still an insane risk. Loki's position on Earth rested squarely on his brother's oath to keep him in line. If anyone caught Loki sneaking around stealing cosmic cubes there wouldn't be any more second chances. Worse, he risked that more than once in order to visit Tony before going off to finish his endgame. Whatever that was.

Which is the rub, for Tony. Loki had a plan, and he executed that plan while Tony sat at home ignorant and drafting his apology for hurting Loki's feelings. There is no scenario Tony can think of where Loki was doing the right thing. No clever angle or change in perspective that makes it coalesce into a sensible decision.

If Loki really is dead, then he had foreseen his probable demise and planted the Tesseract in Tony's hand so he could clean up Loki's mess after he was gone. He also had the opportunity to tell him he was in trouble and ask for help. And didn't. Or at least, Tony hopes he didn't because the alternative is something he can't live with. Maybe if Tony hadn't been angry, maybe if he wasn't shit faced at the time. Maybe there was a look on Loki's face; a tick, a tell, or some hidden message that he was meant to understand in the way that Tony somehow always did. Always, that is, until the one time it actually mattered. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And then there is the other version of the story, in which the whole debacle is a bunch of bullshit and Loki is alive somewhere drinking mimosas. In which he knowingly allowed Tony's guilt to keep him occupied while Loki threw the life they built together in the incinerator. In which he left Tony to care for children whose zits lived longer than he would, and lied to Tony's face about coming back. In which he whored himself out to Tony so he could use his money and connections to get out from under Odin's thumb. In which he destroyed Tony's reputation with the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. for a cheap fuck and a train ticket out of Dodge.

The thoughts swirl around the whirlpool of his mind for a month while his hands pick and solder and deconstruct. He turns every possibility inside out and back again, until he collapses into bed every three or four nights. And when he lays in the fucking enormous bed he can't fill himself and stares at the cold skyline that still has Loki's silhouette cut out of it in his memory, Tony honestly can't decide which of the two scenarios is worse.

When he walks into the living room after a press conference two weeks later to find Odin Allfather drinking a smoothie at his breakfast bar, Tony decides the living Loki version of events is definitely worse. Luckily the brat pack are with Happy at the time, driving around the city like they do when Tony has to be a big boy, so no one is around to enforce the swear jar when he tells Loki what a goddamn motherfucking lying piece of dogshit he is. Along with some choice Aesir words he picked up from Hela.

"Smoothie?" Loki offers, his appearance melting back into his own. He's brazen enough to look apologetic, which is just fucking hysterical.

"Don't." Tony says, "Don't you dare."

"Tony, I swear I didn't intend-"

"Whatever it is you wanted, you got. Don't tell me you didn't plan this."

"Yes, and I am sorry I could not tell you." Loki pleads, he's standing now, bent at the shoulders as though equalizing their height will somehow lessen Tony's ire. There is a will to believe him, deep down. A part of Tony that wants to preserve what they built. But he can't, he would have to be insane.

"You aren't sorry, Loki." Tony shouts, because he's realizing that's what really disturbs him about this. Loki is a liar. He knows that, and he accepts it. No force in the universe can stop Loki from getting what he wants, including truths previously held to be unchangeable. Tony used to think that was a strength. Now that his trust is the unchangeable truth being bent, he very clearly understands why Thor put Loki in handcuffs.

"Don't you dare give me some bullshit apology." Tony says.

The way Loki stares at Tony's chin is all the admission he needs. He's about to tell him to get out of his tower when he notices something in Loki's hand. Something gold. Loki licks his bottom lip, watches Tony inspect him, and with blazing eyes and flared nostrils, lowers himself to kneel at Tony's feet. Shaking hands touch the floor in front of him, and hold out what looks like a spray painted plastic apple with some runes etched in. His voice sounds strange spoken into the concrete. Distorted.

"I have wronged you, Anthony Stark," he says, "and I have come to make reparations."

Immediately, he almost says _you know you really suck at proposals_ , but he's had six weeks to regret fucking up the last time so there's a repeating record of _think before you act think before you act think_ making a traffic jam between his brain and his mouth. He bites down that oh so thoughtful response at the absolute last minute and looks down at Loki. Really looks.

Contrary to popular belief, Tony does read. He knows exactly what Loki is offering, and he is willing to bet the only person in the realms allowed to harvest it is Odin. Another lesser known fact, which Tony is quite conscious of, is that Asgard puts a lot of stock on kneeling. Not the sexy variant people do in clubs with names like Leather and Lace, but the Knights of Camelot one where some people are inherently lesser than other people and those people stay the fuck on the ground while the adults are talking. So although the mental image of Loki executing a flawless submissive pose and kissing his boots would normally have him jacking off in the toilet, seeing him actually do it turns his stomach.

Besides that, there's Loki himself who looks a mess. His hair is still white gold in the back, his waist is saline-bag-at-the-hospital skinny, and his hands are shaking. His hands are also the wrong hands. Not that any of it changes how betrayed Tony feels, or removes his really very spiteful desire for Loki to suffer in kind, because it doesn't. But it is disquieting. It changes the chemistry. Different components yielding different results.

Tony is one sincere _please, Anthony_ from forgiving him when his brain makes a connection that's been itching since the night in the bedroom. Shick. Network online, epiphany incoming. There it is. It's that insidious _he planned this_ intuition informing him that kneeling prettily at Tony's feet is exactly where Loki wants to be right now. Well, okay, not true. The place Loki wants to inhabit at all times is the chaise lounge in Malibu with an ocean view and Tony eating him out under the breakfast tray. But on this particular day, kneeling on the floor begging for forgiveness is certainly where Loki intended to be, and, Tony would wager, is probably the optimal outcome for him. Because he apparently just stole a golden apple, got his brother to publicly mourn him, killed an ancient army, stole the Tesseract, and, ok let's admit it, convinced Tony to forgive him for it in six weeks. With no witnesses. Tony crosses his arms and fucking loathes himself for being a candy-ass, no spine enabler like every other dupe in Loki's world.

"And what was your plan if I said no?" he asks.

"Does that mean you are saying yes?" Loki presses.

"It means I'm done taking anything you do at face value." Tony snaps.

Loki bites his lip, and visibly forces himself not to dodge the question.

"Well I did offer you a smoothie." he admits quietly. Which brings Tony's anger right back to the surface.

"We need to have a talk about consent, Slugger." he says, and eats the goddamn apple.

Or, well, half of it. Loki gets a little panicky when he goes for the other half and chooses then to inform Tony that he needs the rest of his life force for himself. Looking dumbly at the half apple, Tony realizes he recognizes the runes, _knot tangle wrinkle chaos_. Belatedly they make sense to him because they are variations on the only rune he bothered to learn, which is _loki loki loki loki_.

He throws Loki out the window, because he can do that now. Tony has to admit that he can see the appeal when he glares down 59 floors at Loki, who flips him the bird from a crater in the sidewalk like he does this every day. After putting what's left of the apple in the closet safe, he snags the Hulk band-aids purely for comedic effect and goes to peel his boyfriend off the pavement.

Because somehow he still loves that motherfucker.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Trigger warning for this chapter. Discusses a suicide attempt, and suicidal themes. Read cautiously if these are dangerous topics for you.

Loki is gone a lot after that, but nobody dies and he comes back to "make reparations" twice a week like clockwork so Tony figures it's not the worst thing he's ever done. Granted, that's a pretty high bar. When you've murdered your unkillable brother, led massacres on two planets, and broken the universe's only functional Einstein-Rosen bridge, impersonating a monarch is kind of small potatoes.

Not to mention ruling Asgard is tedious. They don't waste much time talking about it, but Tony knows enough to determine that Loki is very much paying penance for his actions. And not with blood, jail time, or insincere apologies like he usually does, but with boring, bureaucratic, deeply frustrating community service. Tony laughs about it loudly, and often, because it's so fucking classic that Loki ensnared himself in a trap of his own making. A trap so expertly crafted that now he can't get out without revealing the whole ruse. If their lives were a book, critics would call it literature.

None of that makes him feel differently. Maybe it should. No previous experiences or outside comparisons exist for dating someone like Loki, and so he has no idea how he should be reacting to all this. Occasionally he thinks it would be nice for some fairy godfather in a banana hammock to appear on his shoulder and tell him what to do. When he pictures his imaginary advice pixie, they looks suspiciously like Mike The Situation but gayer— _like, oh my gawd Tony, you are too good for him_ —and Tony tries not to analyze what that says about him.

Fantasies aside, he hasn't been gifted with a magical mascot to decode his feelings, so he oscillates all over the place. Most days Tony thinks he's earned a little wrath. He can barely be in the same room as Loki without picking some kind of fight, and Loki can only restrain himself for so long without returning fire. Everything makes sense when Loki is solid, alive, and safe in the penthouse, when he's right there for Tony to hate. It's when he leaves that life turns sideways, and his rage seems to teleport with it's target. After Loki leaves a room it's like he leaves a hole in a balloon behind him and Tony just stands there listening to the air gradually hiss out. That's how he is now, poking his Lucky Charms and watching Fen and Jori wrestle on the carpet where Loki turned to mist ten minutes ago.

The fight keeps repeating in his mind on a loop. The way Loki sneered that line about Tony's _ridiculous need to control every situation_ and the awful, stupid barb Tony shot back, the one about how Loki _obviously can't control himself without the Alldaddy watching._ The thought hadn't even been a thought, it just appeared on his mouth and then it was hanging in the air. He feels like he's sharing his body with a rioting lunatic.

Something shifted after the apple, or really after he realized Loki would have forced him to eat it, and now he just wants to fight. It's like a sovereign entity, his anger, and it takes him over when Loki is around. Every insult feeds it and makes it a fatter, hungrier beast.

The problem is, the rage creature is right. Loki really doesn't tell him anything. He jokes and snarks and demands silk sheets, but when it matters his lips are sealed. Tony can't make him admit anything. He just has to watch Loki whisper his name in a sweet voice and spread his legs, has to watch Loki break him down until Tony cracks and tells Loki what he wants him to want. They always had an accord because Loki never committed to anything until he had all the cards in his hand, until he knew what Tony desired and made himself into it. Obliged him. And when Tony dug his fingers into Loki's mind and told him he wanted him forever, Loki made himself the giver of forever. Whether or not Tony actually asked for it. Whether or not it was worth the price Loki paid.

Even rescuing the godlings was his idea, Tony realizes. Loki brought them up in passing with a sad, far away expression, sure, but it was Tony that pumped him for information. It was Tony who read all the legends and came up with the plan. It was Tony that built all the equipment they would need, and it was him that brushed Loki's hair while he sat on the floor between Tony's legs and promised him they wouldn't fail.

Of course Loki can't explain what he was thinking, or even feel bad about it, because that would also make him responsible for it. And Loki can't seem to handle that. He would rather play the coy temptress, would rather pretend to oblige Tony while he runs in circles trying to parse out what Loki wants.

After he and Loki scream themselves hoarse, that tangle of anger floods him with cruel satisfaction at the look of loss on his boyfriend's face. Tony Stark doesn't do cold wars anymore, so when they fight it's fire and brimstone. When they fight it escalates, and round and round they go.

So here he is, sitting at the table with embers turning into ash in the absence of Loki to fuel them. The atmosphere in the tower is oppressive. The kids have been stuck in the apartment for months, and it's starting to drive everyone mad. Tony gets them out as much as he can but it's a risk every time. They can't leave private property, so the best he can do is drive-in movies and long scenic cruising. Now that he and Loki fight every waking minute there haven't been many of those either. Consequently the boy's wrestling takes on a level of aggression that's probably not okay, but Tony doesn't break it up. Better that they tear each other up than the rest of the building. They're young gods, they can walk it off.

Jori is a hundred years younger, and about four inches shorter, but that doesn't matter so much when he's an eighteen foot constrictor in a stranglehold. Fen's pretty massive too, as a full size wolf, so when he shakes his back it's probably pretty hard to hold on. Jori sinks his teeth in to stay aboard, and Fen rolls into a transformation. Tony winces when Jori lands in a heap on the floor, but apparently the fight isn't over. A naked blue Fen squeezes out from the massive coil of snake and bolts for the kitchen.

It's pretty amusing, all things considered, until Jori mimics the morph and tackles his brother from behind, both of them slamming hard into the concrete floor. Tony's debating whether or not to step in when he notices Fenrir bleeding, and that's all the warning he gets before the kid grows dagger sharp claws and turns on Jori. He's out of his chair like a jilted husband on Maury, but it's not fast enough. Jori screams as his brother claws him across the chest, and then Tony's yelling too.

"Hey, hey that's enough." he shouts, clutching Fenrir by the arms and throwing him off. Jesus, it's a fucking live production of Carrie. Three deep gashes rend Jori's torso, but luckily stop before his guts or they would be calling an ambulance, alien healing factor notwithstanding. Even Fen looks shocked when he sees what he did.

"He bit me." Fen protests, but he's looking at his bloody fingers in horror. "He started it."

"Yeah, well, I'd say you finished it, Champ." Tony says, "Get a towel."

Jori's crying now, and his hands are crimson, clutching his chest.

"Shh, shh it's ok. You're ok." Tony babbles, adding his own hands to the mess until Fen runs back with the towel and the first aid kit. Well, at least he's observant. He feels like he's doing five things at once, and before he knows it he has the towel on Jori's chest to stop the bleeding, a wound kit ready, and his phone on the floor running the awful Norse translator he's been coding. He also has a four foot pre-teen Jotun breathing down his neck.

"Hit the showers, Fen." he says, then thinks better of it. "Wait, you're not bleeding are you?"

The phone dutifully repeats the most literal and probably inaccurate translation of what Tony said and Fen tilts his head for Tony to see. He has a row of puncture wounds on his neck, which Tony knows hurt like hell because he's had more than a few. Jori can't help himself when he's a spooked snake, it's instinct. They are small bites though, and they close on their own. Fen's are already scabbed over and swollen.

"Ok, go clean up. Your teacher's gonna be here any minute." Tony says and turns back to Jori, thinking that's that.

"Tony always pick Jori." Fen yells in English. His fingers are blunt again, but he's curling them into fists. This is the part about raising gods that makes Tony want Xanax. It's less tense now that Tony's about as durable as they are, but still. Kids shouldn't be stronger than adults.

The translator really must be garbage, because Fen never uses it back. Of course, he probably has just as much trouble with Asgardian as English. Neither he nor Jori had much stimulation or company in their prisons, and seem just as stilted when Loki speaks to them. Fuck, don't think about Loki.

"Tony pick Fen if Fen do good." Tony says calmly, feeling like the Hulk. Whatever, the kid needs to understand. "Fen shower now. School soon."

"Sorry." Fen says, and grabs one of Jori's hands. "Sorry."

"Fen shower now." Tony repeats, a little edgier, and the kid retreats. Poor Jori is still bawling on the floor. Once he can see them, the cuts don't look as bad as he thought. They are long, and definitely deep, but they don't go past the skin. He has Jarvis pull up a shiny hologram and distract him while Tony wraps him up. His body is so tiny in Tony's hands, it makes him feel like the giant. He thinks Jori is about two hundred, but those ages don't mean anything to him. He looks five, to Tony. He's skinny and small. Tony has wrenches with thicker arms than him.

Wailing Asgardian forms the soundtrack for Tony's work. At first it's just noise that washes over his focus, but when he secures the end of the bandage with an aluminum clip he hears the translator robotically begging _daddy daddy i want daddy where is daddy._

"Shh, shh, little bit." Tony says, picking him up as carefully as he can. "I'm not your dad but I'm here."

The crying continues, but he closes the app. It's depressing.

The water from the kitchen faucet splashes down red when he puts Jori's feet in there and washes both of their hands. The kid tries to squirm away but he's crashing from adrenaline and trapped between Tony's arms, so after a minute he gives in and bears it. The bandage helps. He doesn't seem to feel the cuts under it. He holds Jori's hand in his and kicks his phone into selfie mode.

"Check it out, Blueberry, you got a cool shirt now." he lies, forces a smile. "It's a special shirt only warriors wear."

Jori doesn't seem to get it, which is awesome, because Tony feels idiotic the minute he says it. He scruffs the kid's hair and Jori grabs his forearm. Holds it there and plasters his back against Tony. Yeah, he remembers that part of being a lonely kid. Shit, this day is just a parade of childhood trauma coming to ask how he's been. He snaps a photo once Jori looks less distressed. He'll need something to show Loki when he comes back and finds his youngest kid maimed.

He carries Jori across the living room to the hall, rushing when he sees the mid-morning light on the skyline. He wasn't lying earlier, the teacher they loaned from Xavier really is supposed to be here any minute. One topic, amid literally dozens of bitch sessions, that had actually gone well was he and Loki's discussion of education. Not that there were an incredible number of options, but still. Any port in a storm.

It's while he's half jogging to the boy's bedroom that he notices something out of the corner of his eye. The observation doesn't warrant investigation just then. He's in too much of a hurry working out what else he's supposed to do today while simultaneously pulling up Jori's pants and checking the bathroom to make sure Fenrir is really getting ready and not just poking at his horns in the mirror again. But he does notice something out of place through the open door to his own bedroom, and he makes a note to check on it later.

Back in the living room, Douglas Ramsey leans on the kitchen counter waiting. Eyes the blood with his mild airhead smile and takes in the undoubtedly shameful spectacle of Tony herding his rumpled entourage. Forget the sex tapes, if a photographer broke in right now, then today would be by far the most embarrassing tabloid cover of his life.

"Rough morning?" he asks like the smooth, impeccably dressed millennial he is.

"You have no idea." Tony says, even though he knows that within moments Cipher's mutant language mojo will neatly unpack all the subtext in that statement and give him actually a very good idea.

Ramsey's uncanny mutation makes Tony uncomfortable. Really anybody that can't be confused or stalled by fast talking and obscure references makes Tony uncomfortable, but needs must. At the moment, Cipher is the only person on the planet that can fluently communicate with his hellions, so Tony lets him in the building every weekday to tutor his kids into functioning members of society.

"Should I come back?" Ramsey asks with genuine concern, and ain't that just a peach.

"God no." Tony says.

Ramsey doesn't really react to that, but only because Jori and Fen start blabbering animatedly at him and pointing to their battle wounds. Apparently, they've decided they are proud of nearly giving him a heart attack.

"In fact, today would be a great time to talk about excessive force." Tony adds.

"I will pencil it in between ABCs and days of the week." Cipher assures, and leads the blue man group to the converted guest room that now houses a state of the art classroom. No kid of his is writing on a fucking stone age chalkboard.

Hela looks like she would rather eat a boot than spend another day tracing letters on dotted paper, but she goes quietly when she meets Tony's gaze. God, he must look pathetic. Hela only cooperates when she feels sorry for him.

A weight lifts from his shoulders now that no one is watching, but that just leaves him with his soggy breakfast and a pool of blood creeping towards the carpet. It's while he is elbow deep in a really disgusting bucket of bloody soap water with neon pink rubber gloves flapping at his forearms that he remembers the thing on his dresser. A few minutes later he dumps the bucket and all the towels into the hazardous waste shoot and makes for his bedroom.

The room hasn't changed since this morning. Sparse, too large, curtains drawn, green satin sheets rumpled. Clothes everywhere. Loki is fastidiously neat, and perhaps Tony's gotten a little too accustomed to someone cleaning up after him. Or maybe the mess reassures him that this is how the room is supposed to be, that he's not missing anything. It's how his room always used to be without hired help.

Six years ago he would have called a maid service. Maybe thrown in a little extra for a blonde with a cute face. Now he's too paranoid, can't imagine letting a stranger in his house. Even the high security famous people maids could open a door and see a naked alien trying to kill an anaconda, or open a drawer and find an ancient space cube. Yeah, he'll have to make a bot.

Amendment. The room hasn't changed except the dresser. What a doozie of a change that one is though. For a hot second he thinks Loki misunderstood him eating the apple as a sign that grand larceny is the way back into his good graces, because the thing sitting on his dresser looks exactly like a Faberge egg. Not a souvenir shop knock off, or a highly authentic replica, but a real one. He knows the difference because he's seen most of them at auctions and high society gallery shows. When he approaches it rotates serenely around the gold three claw base, the jewel encrusted latticework gleaming over a glossy emerald egg. There's no sound of gears turning or stutter of servo motors, it's captivating. It's also clearly a bribe.

Tony almost rolls his eyes like Hela, because _please_. Materialism, he will freely admit, is a weakness of his. Tony loves pretty stuff. He loves making it, buying it, collecting it, the whole shebang. You don't end up with a black book like his without a weakness for the finer things. But a bribe is a bribe.

By the time he's standing in front of the egg, he's almost managed to harden his heart to whatever appeal it is supposed to have. Loki isn't getting out of this with gold and gem-relds. Tony resolves to make him sorry, and then make him apologize. Nothing short of complete understanding is enough. But then the egg splits open, glowing internally as three equal shards bloom outward and continue spinning below a delicate pedestal holding a gold pendant atop a handwritten note on honest-to-god parchment.

The locket is pretty old school. It's kind of off-putting, because it reeks of chaste Victorian courtship and wood paneled drawing rooms. Tony almost chucks it, but Loki sent it. He took time to pick it out and acquire this device to send it to him, so Tony might as well crack it open. The clasp is finicky, really small and clumsy to operate in his big machinist hands, but he gets it open. He's half expecting trite black and white lithographs or whatever passes for art on Asgard, but it's not like that at all. Actually, what he sees inside is kind of confusing.

It's just a dial with a bunch of numbers on it. Very, very large numbers, in a three column grid. He has no idea what they mean until he shifts from foot to foot, and the numbers change. Huh. Some kind of locator then, relative to a second point in space. Oh, ok then, that is… thoughtful. What blows his mind more than the archaic GPS locket are the stones set in it. Tear drop shaped, dark brown, and not at all crystalline. It isn't until he pries the glass face off with his thumb and they fall into his palm that he realizes they are seeds. Apple seeds. Fuck. Fuck that bastard, that's a cheap shot.

Tony groans and puts the thing back together. Clasps it around his neck like some doting 1850s war bride. It looks okay in the mirror. Unassuming chain, long enough to tuck under his band shirt, or lay on top if he wants. Plain gold and very flat, passably masculine enough not to attract comments.

Shit, ok. Maybe a few more gifts like this wouldn't be amiss.

The note however. Well.

 _Anthony,_

 _It brings me such anguish to speak to you in a letter, knowing that the ink of my quill has more esteem with you than my own person. However upon reflection of our interactions this past fortnight, I must conclude that we have forgotten how to be near one another, and that letters may be the only method by which I may restore our sacred bond._

 _I confess I am perplexed by your scorn. You have always professed to enjoy my duplicity and "sass" and frequently praise others for pursuing their goals regardless of moral ambiguity. That you would disapprove of my risk taking I had no doubt, but I do not understand why you view this as a violation of our trust, when in fact it is the most indemnifying validation I can conceive of._

 _My wretched heart insists that you would not accept my apple in malice, with a knowing desire to live half my life apart from me. But in my mind I know there are no limits to the pain one can inflict when the flames of affection snuff. Will you tell me if there is no way for me to restore what was broken? Are my efforts in vain or is there yet hope?_

 _-Loki_

 _P.S. This device functions similarly to your fax machines, although unlike that technology its use fully transports the object in question to it's matching pair in my study on Asgard. If you should require anything of me, at any time, you may use it by placing a size appropriate object on the plate and closing the shell._

He signed it in rune, which Tony chocks up to Asgardian formality, until he runs his finger over it and it morphs into a glowing blue script over top of the ink. _This letter is true_ it says. Curious, Tony looks around for a pen, and in the end he has to run up to the home office. When he gets up the stairs he skids into a rolling chair at the conference table and writes:

My dick is a three inch micropenis.

Then he runs his finger over Loki's name, and blue magic letters inform him _this letter is false_.

Well how about that. He reads the letter again with a slightly more open mind. Then again because it hurts in a way that he desperately doesn't want to stop feeling. It's the incisors of hope digging into him while his brain reminds him that Loki doesn't get it. That gods don't learn lessons easily. That they have nothing but time now, and just like Interview with a Vampire, that blissful eternity of love could just as easily be an interminable curse of perpetual pain and discord.

But fuck, the hope is there. He didn't feel it rotting away until Loki's words revived it. Now it's agony. No words seem to describe it until he reads the letter again and finds Loki already has. _There are no limits to the pain one can inflict when the flames of affection snuff._ Yes, yes Tony knows that well. Every childhood memory is part of the secret timeline of his parents slowly imploding and inverting into hateful enemies that slept side by side. Maybe he doesn't know how, but he and Loki aren't doing that. No way.

On impulse, he scribbles a reply on a yellow post-it note, hard enough to leave an indented version of the message on the rest of the pad.

 _APOLOGIZE.  
_ _THAT'S ALL I  
_ _WANT. JUST  
_ _SAY IT AND  
_ _MEAN IT._

And he struts back into the master bedroom like he stormed out of the cave; sweaty, terrified, and desperate to stay alive. This time it is not a physical death he's afraid of. Half the human race couldn't kill him now. No, he's terrified of what happens when he succumbs to the depression. What happens to him, but even more, what happens to Loki. That bag of cats nearly ended the world while Tony loved him, he doesn't want to wake up after another few years of vacant despair and find his ex gleefully crushing humanity under his Cole Haans. Because Loki would, he would and it would bring him genuine satisfaction.

Tony slams the sticky note on the pedestal and the petals close as though sensing his urgency. Suddenly he is awake for the first time in two months and he wants someone to explain where the fuck the time went. There has to be some explanation for how the hell he, the guy with the Energizer bunny in his brain, laid around on the couch and moped for forty five days. He taps his hands on his chest for a minute, and that's as long as he can manage. He's off.

The cube comes out of the drawer, and the damned sweatpants come off. Twenty minutes has him showered, shat, and shaved. Jarvis has a shake ready by the time he steps out of the elevator on the top security floor, and he grabs it without deviating from a straight line to the lab. Then he stops, just for an instant.

The home lab looks so unfamiliar. He hasn't come down here once since they left on their space quest, not even to move his basics up to the penthouse. He had people for that. But seriously, what the fuck. This is the room that makes the tower home, this is literally where the magic happens. Maybe he was brainwashed after all. Not like the Avengers kept accusing Loki, no. This mind control he did to himself.

 _Pft_ , he thinks, _sentiment, ew,_ and makes himself take ownership of the space. This is his shit, all this exists to facilitate his genius. Without the genius it is just an expensive room. Take off the suit, who is he? A depressed alcoholic with a fatal attraction to pretty liars. Time to do something about that.

The Tesseract goes in the apparatus that used to hold the arc reactors while he worked. It's kind of disturbing that it fits like a glove. The scanners don't know what it is. No shit, neither does he. The blue glow seems like a clue. He stares at it and realizes he has it all wrong. There's cobwebs on the memories of New York, but he's edietic. They're still there.

Nobody questioned how Loki controlled people during the invasion. Tony knows it wasn't the cube, because he knows Loki was being controlled too. No matter how powerful, Loki wouldn't have used the cube again if it carried a risk of further mind jacking. Certainly, he wouldn't have put it in their bedroom.

Selvig managed to make a portal with it, so Tony assumes it's something to do with physical distance. Wormholes, that kind of thing. Obviously Loki can open and use it, since Tony saw him do so several times during their whirlwind trip across the universe's scummy underbelly, but Tony isn't magic so that is kind of irrelevant to him.

He remembers Stuttgart, and the brick of iridium Selvig needed to activate the cube, and that's not really what he's after either. Tony figured out how the cube worked before he even set foot on the helicarrier. What seems more relevant now is what the cube actually is. What is it made of, why is it a cube and not some other shape, and how can it be replicated? That's the stuff he needs to know in order to apply the technology to other uses, and that's where he gets stuck.

He chews on that mystery for a few hours while he messes with his cars. He can wait for a breakthrough. Eventually Jarvis cuts his tunes and tells him school is finished.

The kids seem good, all very relieved to be done with class and also worn out from what was apparently a very intense lesson. The boys are already asleep on the couch, snoring in counterpoint like an internal combustion engine, and this day just gets better and better.

"Damn." Tony says approvingly, "I'm a fan of your work."

"You seem better too, Mr. Stark. I'll see you tomorrow." Ramsey says, eyeing the locket Tony realizes is openly on display, gleaming in sharp contrast to his faded Metallica tee. Self consciousness almost makes him tuck it away, but that's a tell.

"Done deal." Tony says, tapping a screwdriver on his open palm as the man lets himself out. Hela's the only other person conscious, curled up in Loki's recliner.

"You good, Split Screen?"

Hela takes out an ear bud and tilts her head, trying to look surly while enjoying Avalon High. Clearly she's fine, so he gives her the thumbs up and she goes back to it. With that seamless transition to nap time complete he makes for the master bedroom. The dirty secret of the century is that he sleeps more during nap time than any of the mini gods. Sometimes more than he sleeps at night, actually. He's kicking off his Converse to do just that when the egg starts spinning.

He's transfixed by it at first, because it really is a stunning piece of tech, then he is up and running. It's an uncoordinated tumble to the dresser, what with the long laces untied and whacking him in the shins.

This note is longer, and, he smirks, much less precise in the penmanship. Written in a hurry, then. His traitorous heart skips when he notices a tiny parcel under it, brown burlap wrapped in twine. He unfolds the long rectangle of parchment and reads.

 _Anthony,_

 _Your reply sets my heart at rest, and I thank you for it. I do not expect you to always respond to my messages. You do not even have to read them. You are righteously upset with me, and I know that I am fortunate to have whatever you give._

 _You have asked me not to apologize unless there is regret in my heart, and so I cannot. I shall never regret what I have done, for it is my intention that we will find peace between us and stand side by side for as long as we both shall live. My desire and anticipation for that time is not regrettable, even if the method by which I achieved it displeases you._

 _I see from my own piece that you accept the locket. This makes me glad. Even though we struggle to love each other as we should, the proof that you are well and living eases my nightmares. Please accept this additional gift as an expression of my desire to care for you in a manner befitting a prince of Asgard. Should you find it in your heart to forgive me, I would have you draped in gold and rubies far grander than this, and shower you daily in the most sumptuous silks and leathers._

 _In your world you have made me an impenetrable fortress above the sky. In mine, I would make you a god of invention and cunning. You would be a creature so bright and so gilded that it would blind your lessers to look upon you. And, if I may be bold, when the sky grew dark at night and you could gleam no more, Anthony, I would secret you away to my chambers and worship you as a king does only to his consort. I must stop there before I carry myself away._

 _I should not say such things while we are in discord, but if I lie then I will have to start the letter all over again, and so I cannot erase what I have said. Please care for yourself while I am away. It should be obvious that harm to your person is harm to me. Remember to eat. And do attempt to sleep. I must stop, I'm being patronizing._

 _Gratefully yours,_

 _Loki_

Well. Silver tongue indeed. The truth seal checks out, and that's about all he can digest at the moment. The bit about the gold and jewels was… inventive. And, ok, his pants might be a little tight at the consort bit. Who could blame him? He signed up for Rock of Ages, and now he's getting One Thousand and One Nights with a side of gold nipple rings. Crossing his legs, he puts that bit of softcore porn to the side and unties the parcel. It's small, about the size of a dime bag, with a gold ring inside. Huh.

After the letter it's kind of underwhelming. The ring is nice. Solid. Nothing all that special by the look of it. But Tony doesn't take shit for what it seems anymore. It has runes etched around the inside that clearly mean something, but it's Greek to him. The outside is pristine and well formed, Tony would know, he's kind of an expert on gold alloys. He sets it on the dresser and debates whether or not to put it on. Lord of the Rings taught him well as a teenager. You don't just go around putting on enchanted rings sight unseen. But Loki gave it to him, so surely it couldn't be dangerous.

He slips it on. Fits perfectly, of course, because Loki only fucks up big. He can never make harmless mistakes like getting an obscure size estimation wrong. Tony waits, but nothing happens. Oh well. Apparently it is just an underwhelming present like it appears.

He goes back to the bed and does as Loki wishes, sleeping shallowly for the next hour while vague, impressionistic dreams lull him. They are just images flitting about as his brain processes the day, nothing solid. Jori flopping on the floor like a Looney Tunes sketch. Hela pulling out her earbud and putting it back in. The Tesseract pulsing from across the lab. Concubine Loki smirking at him in gold handcuffs. It all just sloshes around his tired brain until he wakes up, feeling about as manic as he did when he laid down.

When he sits up he finds his hand in a clammy fist. Unfolding his fingers, he glances down to discover three gold rings laying innocuously on his palm in addition to the one circling his finger. Then he barks out a laugh. Fucking ridiculous.

It's the actual ring from that stupid legend, the one where Loki tries to fuck with the dwarves and they don't give a shit. In fact they make Mjolnir and everyone thinks it's great. If he remembers correctly, the myth says that Draupnir generates eight rings every nine nights. Seems like the actual number is closer to three replications every two hours. If only the original duplicates, then Tony will be the proud owner of thirty seven gold rings by this time tomorrow. If all of them duplicate, his math brain supplies automatically, then it will be four thousand and ninety seven.

He puts all four rings in Loki's bedside drawer and lets that percolate for a couple days. For science.


	5. Chapter 5

He reads the letters several times over the next two days, folds them open and shut so much that the parchment starts to rip in the creases.

It's stupid, obsessing over the words of someone he can't stand to be around. But the letters don't feel like that person. They connect him to a shred of the Loki he held on the space shuttle.

So he keeps the locket tucked under his shirt at all times and focuses his attention on blasting every known element at the Tesseract. Nothing so much as chips the surface, not even the as-of-yet unnamed element in his arc reactors. It doesn't even flicker when he takes it to the Arizona base and sends it on a light speed trip around the particle accelerator.

The cube baffles him, but that's what makes science fun. 'There's always tomorrow' is his new motto, because, seriously, there is. He had Jarvis run the math, and even at half an Asgardian lifespan, Tony is going to see nine hundred thousand more sunsets in his life. At least. God knows how much medical technology will advance by then.

There are some jumbled attempts at a response to Loki's letter, but he can't seem to force the right words into a meaningful order. It's funny, people are always calling out his charisma when they want to get him riled. _Always a witty comeback huh Stark, I wonder what happens when the laughter stops?_ Yet when he tries to put that talent down on paper it just seems insufficient.

The phrases sound forced, or too insensitive without a certain tone to give them context, too harsh without a wink and a smirk to make them funny or diffusing like he intends. So in the end he takes the out Loki left him and doesn't write a direct response.

Instead of eloquent words he sends news. The sticky notes live by the egg now, with a nice juicy Sharpie and a photo printer.

He sends photos every day, anything interesting or cute that the sprouts do around the house. Fenrir holding a tablet where he wrote his name for the first time. Hela buzzing Jori's hair. He tries really hard to come up with commentary worth the paper, but it's usually just lame high school locker crap like "Fen's horns grew an inch!" or "Hela, the Indomitable Laundry Girl".

One day he's feeling especially impotent and draws a lopsided heart. He's literally never drawn a heart in his life so it comes out looking like a kidney with diarrhea. He burns that one with a blowtorch and sends a smiley face instead, as if that's any better.

The penis shaped sailboat almost makes the cut, but he chickens out. Maybe Loki hates these dumb notes and something like that would just put them back at rock bottom. He puts that one in the lab though, because it's the pinnacle of his artistic achievement.

Loki doesn't respond once for the rest of the week, so Tony isn't sure if he's helping or hurting. There's nothing else he can offer him, so he keeps sending his silly tokens. As the week turns into two he keeps sending them, more and more each day when the kids find out and demand he show Loki this and that.

Tony's not sure when exactly he signed up to be a family man, but here he is. The bits need an adult and their dad is a bag of dicks, so Tony puts his life on pause and does his damnedest not to be Howard Stark.

It all starts to seem normal until Loki materializes in the living room on Friday night while Walt and Jesse plan to build another meth lab on TV. At first he's annoyed because, hello, Mike can't afford to bribe the snitches in prison anymore, what a fucking plot twist. Then Loki collapses and turns the crack in the coffee table into a pile of glass shards with his face, and Tony grows the fuck up.

Hela freaks out a little, and he can't blame her. Loki's in Jotun skin, but it's ashy and almost powder blue. His chin looks like an ice pick and feels about as cold when he cups Loki's face and pulls one eyelid open to shine a flashlight in.

His eyes respond, which is a relief. Tony's torn between dragging Loki down to the lab for an IV and dunking him in a boiling bath. When Hela asks him somewhat hysterically what she should do, he decides to split the difference and tells her to turn on the jacuzzi.

The saline drip is easy enough, once he gets the fucking needle through Loki's stupid impervious giant skin. Dragging his dead weight down three floors to the spa suite is the hard part.

Loki splashes into the acrid chlorinated water like a boulder in a rock slide, still fully clothed with his boots on. Tony isn't sure what to do after that, so he pokes and annoys Hela until she can't stand to be around him and agrees to watch her brothers.

His shirt comes off as soon as the elevator dings, and his pants shortly after. It's the least sexy soak they've ever had, but he promises to rectify that if Loki bounces back. When. When Loki bounces back.

The hot tub straight up overflows when he jumps in, but he doesn't care. His only interest is in getting Loki out of his leathers so he can assess the situation. It takes way too long thanks to fucking Asgardian fashion, and in the end he just cuts the damn pants off with surgical scissors.

The sight of Loki's uncovered body does not reassure him. He's emaciated, muscles cut and defined like his Aesir form, but Tony knows that's not how it's supposed to look.

 _Remember to eat_ he recalls from Loki's letter, the fucking hypocrite. How does the Allfather not eat and nobody notices? You'd think Loki would be gaining weight on fatty knights of the round table food. Half of their meals are cooked in boar's fat for fuck's sake.

Now he has him naked, it's plain to see that Loki isn't injured apart from the bruise on his cheek where he headbutted the coffee table. The lack of obvious cause is unnerving.

Tony dips into the corner seat and tugs Loki's weightless body into his lap. This part probably doesn't have any medical value, but it makes him feel better while he waits.

It's night time through the building's glass walls, and he doesn't believe in clocks hanging around judging him for working fourteen hour days, so time becomes elusive. He doesn't know how long he sits there biting his tongue to ribbons and occasionally patting Loki on the cheek and telling him to wake up.

The waiting ends when Bruce Banner pads out of the yoga studio one level up and waves. The good doctor is easily Tony's favorite Avenger that he wouldn't fuck. The one that he would is obviously Natasha, but of the rest of them Bruce is king. He's fuzzy, brilliant, and generous with his good weed, which is Tony's mark of a decent guy.

Right now he's really, really unhappy to see him. Amidst all the chaos of the last two months, Tony hasn't really gotten around to telling anyone else Loki is alive. Not to mention that whoever found out obviously couldn't tell Thor, which Tony knew would be a sticking point for most of them.

So when Bruce waves at him, his heart kind of stops. Banner is all relaxed and wrapped in warm light from the bamboo partition around the yoga mats, wearing a pair of baggy linen drawstrings and a scoop neck tee like a yuppie half his age, and Tony just knows he's gonna ruin his day. Bruce must be a little high because it takes a second, but when he processes what he's seeing his hand flops down like a dead fish.

"Still not the worst thing you've caught me doing." Tony says, at the same time Bruce shouts, "What the hell, Tony, what the actual-"

And, ok, this might be worse than the time Tony pulverized the ancient Tibetan holy crystal to salt his margarita. But right now it doesn't matter, he just needs Bruce to not go green and maybe not blow Loki's cover to the rest of the team.

That, and he definitely needs Bruce to not try and murderize him while he's naked with a blue alien in a jacuzzi. He gets one wish, which is that Bruce is a very healthy pink when he takes the stairs two at a time down to the pool level.

"Oh this is definitely worse than Canada." Bruce says, fussing with his curly hair.

"Canada? Really, that's your pick?" Tony stalls, slipping and sliding while he tries to get around Loki and stand in front.

"Oh god, tell me you're wearing something." Bruce says. He holds his hand flat to cover Tony's better half and squints. "There are some things I can't know about you, man."

"I'm covered. He isn't." Tony says, climbing out of the jacuzzi and dripping all over the steps. "So maybe you should turn around. You won't see anything, and he won't kill me for letting someone see him like this."

"Oh my god, is that Loki?" Bruce gasps, like seriously hands-over-the-mouth gasps like a telenovela, then quotes in an awed voice, "Tony, you got some 'splainin to do."

"I know, I know look-"

"He's supposed to be dead, how is he not dead?"

"Yeah, do that for another two weeks and you'll be where I'm at. Now either go upstairs and forget you saw this or help me figure out what's wrong with him." Tony says. That seems to break Bruce out of his shock. Reminds him of that pesky doctor's oath he swore.

"I take it he's not supposed to look like that?" Bruce asks.

"Well, no, he-' Tony hesitates, knowing that Loki wouldn't like him revealing anything. "he's pale. Paler than he should be. And thinner."

"Why the hot tub?"

"He was cold. Resting body temp should be 107." Tony says. "He blacked out right after porting in."

"I have a heat lamp in my lab." Bruce offers, and it's such a relief that Tony almost hugs him dripping wet.

In Bruce's lab everything seems more controlled. Tony isn't sure why he didn't do this in the first place. They lay him up on a gurney and cover the metal in blankets so they don't burn the building down, and then Bruce bakes him like a rotisserie chicken. His skin gets some color back, but he still won't wake up when Tony calls him. His life signs are fading, which is alarming.

"Huh." Bruce says over an array of holograms. "Long list of stomach contents. He's been eating."

That surprises Tony. There's no denying the state of Loki, but the tests don't lie.

"Melatonin levels are waking normal. He's not trying to sleep." Tony replies.

"So he's not sick, or injured, or starving." Bruce summarizes, "But he's dying."

Tony watches the heart monitor in complete disarray.

"It's like he's out of energy, but-" Tony trails off, thinking.

Oh. Well, duh. Tony runs for the elevator.

"Leave the lights on, honey." he tells Bruce, "I'll be right back."

The ride up to the penthouse is a blur. He doesn't stop once. Even when he sees Hela asleep in Loki's chair, he floats past and throws the door to his closet open. Clothes, way too many clothes get in the way as he shoves them aside and keys in his pass code to the small black safe hidden in the wall. He bends down and lets it scan his eye, and when it pops open he grabs the mangled little half apple and slams the door on the way out.

Tony walks back in the lab a lot more confidently than he left. He tosses the magic fruit in one hand like a baseball, and really, really wants to throw it at Loki's unconscious head.

Instead he stalks to the kitchenette in the far corner of the lab and slaps down a cutting board. Tony isn't really one for knives, but he still has all his fingers by the end so mission accomplished. Everything but the core is now in a pile of neat slices. He carries the tray to Loki's bedside and sits.

"Should I be seeing this?" Bruce asks.

"Probably not." Tony admits, eyes stuck on Loki as he puts the smallest slice to his lips.

Bruce doesn't move. Nobody does for a very long couple of seconds while Tony tries to get Loki to wake up and eat. He doesn't respond to anything, not words or pats to his cheek or a flashlight in his eyes. Sighing, Tony slaps him on the jaw. Hard.

Loki's eyes flutter, and he inhales a shallow surprised groan. He works his tongue around what is probably a very unpleasant dry mouth, and Tony takes the opportunity to slide the apple slice in.

"Eat."

Loki coughs around the obstruction, dry and wheezy. A plastic cup of ice chips finds its way into Tony's hand and he is so stupidly grateful for Bruce. A few chips go a long way. Loki breathes more evenly, and Tony hands the ice to Bruce.

There's no internal monologue in Tony's head, no diverging trains of thought. Everything is eerily silent as he pulls out a bowl and a fork and pulverizes the apple to mush. He's scared and quietly furious, but all that can wait. Everything but him forcing Loki's life force back inside his stupid, empty skull can take a number.

Bruce seems to read something in Tony's posture and skedaddles. Closes up his workspace, hangs up his lab coat, and tells Tony to call him if he needs anything. He is really the best doctor in the building, and there are a lot of options.

He stalks back over to Loki's side and dips two fingers in the sauce. The bowl lands on a metal tray by the bed and Tony's free hand grips Loki by his narrow chin. He still hasn't opened his eyes, but his skin knows Tony's fingers and relaxes slightly under them. His mouth sags open and his weak exhales ghost on Tony's knuckles. He's so furious with Loki his hands are shaking.

"Suck." Tony says in his most guttural assertive voice.

It's not his boss voice. Experience taught him that people are loyal to friends, not tyrants, so he prefers to be the nice guy at work. He always throws good office parties, and makes sure everyone knows they can come to him with their problems. So yeah, this tone isn't his boss voice.

The tone he uses with Loki is bedroom only, and even then only a couple of people have heard it. Loki damn sure hasn't heard him give an order before, because it's hard enough to get a straight answer without going Indiana Jones on his ass. Not this time. This time Loki is going to be a good boy and do what Tony says. Right now. And Tony doesn't give a shit whether or not Loki wants to.

"Suck." he repeats.

Loki does. Closes his warm lips and delicately takes down the crushed soul juice. The rhythm in his chest stutters, then starts again stronger. It's working.

"Good." he rasps, voice cracking and scoops another mouthful on his fingers. Presses them against Loki's lips.

"Open." Tony orders, and something primal and gruff rumbles in his gut when Loki obeys immediately, as much as he is able. Weak but trying with every fiber to please him. Tony slides his fingers over Loki's tongue and he drinks the nectar without Tony needing to tell him.

"Good, Loki." he says. Replacing the finger with his lips, just for a moment, just to reassure himself that there is power yet in his lover's body.

"Tony." he mumbles, and Tony lines his fingers up once more. Loki's strength is returning.

When he feels the fingers there he rubs his chapped lips into Tony's knuckles, a sinful drag of soft skin before he sucks all the way down and licks them until they are clean. He's thorough, laving that hot tongue into the swirling fingerprints and deep into the webbing between them.

"Okay." Tony chokes, alarmed by how much Loki turns him on even while he wants to hammer a list of his crimes to the wall and shove his face in it. "Good, Loki. Open."

Loki opens his eyes along with his mouth, and they are glassy and unfocused. Only half there. A pool of juice and a few pulpy scraps are all that is left in the bowl so he cups it in his hand and wraps his other around the back of Loki's neck. He holds his head up and tilts the bowl.

"Drink. All of it."

"Yes, Tony." Loki whispers into the bowl and sips it. Doesn't spill a drop and looks up at him when he's done, licking the last of it from his lips.

"See. You can be taught." Tony says, "I solved another of life's great mysteries."

"Suck and swallow are hardly complex lessons." Loki mumbles, and Tony feels like he can function normally again. That's his Loki, the one that drives him crazy.

"Crawl before you walk, Snowflake." he says.

"Then how would you have me walk?" Loki asks. His face is open, and shit he actually wants to know. There's no game in the question, no playful double talk. Loki wants Tony to tell him.

Observations bounce around like pinball in his head, and suddenly he understands what their problem has been the whole time. Since day one Tony has been thinking that the sex is the reward for them getting along. If he can just get over Loki's past, then he gets to eat the forbidden fruit.

Sex isn't the reward for Loki, it's how he earns the reward. The safety of the tower, the simplicity of Tony throwing him down and giving him what he can't ask for. That's his motivator. And now that Loki's made a mistake and he's in danger, Tony took that away.

He is glad for Loki's question. It buys him time to rewrite the handbook. This is what Tony has to work with, and Jesus fuck does he want to keep it. He wants to build Loki up like one of his suits until he's perfect and unstoppable and roman numerals are impractical to count his iterations. But Loki's a pile of cave scrap right now and he's been trying to handle him like a Mark III. He needs a new plan.

Tony runs a hand through the matted hair between Loki's horns and paces to the fridge. Grabs some supplies and arranges them on the tray by Loki's bed. Neat rows, because Loki needs that. You can't make chaos without order to disrupt. He watches Tony carefully, confused, as he makes a display of Gatorade bottles, granola bars, and yogurt cups.

If Loki wants clear instructions, Tony can do that.

"Red bottle you drink now. Half the blue after that and then the yogurt. In two hours, you finish the blue bottle and this bar." Tony says firmly, no cracks, no spaces for misunderstanding. "Not any of the others, this one."

Loki nods, brows lowered in consideration.

"Is that all?" he asks, like he doesn't trust something this simple to be anything but a trap. Well he wouldn't, would he.

"No. Then we're going to sleep and in the morning you're going to eat the rest. That's where you get a choice." Tony says, "If you do all that stuff we just talked about, you pick anything you want and I'll do it."

"Anything?" Loki asks.

"Anything. But if you don't-" Tony swallows around a lump in his throat. This is the part of the leather and lace crowd he's not good with, the reason he's only done this a couple times. Punishment never sounded that sexy to him. But here he is, in desperate need of a deterrent. "Loki, I want you to really listen here, because I'm serious."

"Yes, Tony?" Loki says, in a way that is becoming way too comfortable.

"If you don't do this, if you can't work with me on something as simple as keeping you alive, I'm done. Okay? I'm not pulling double duty in this relationship anymore. You have to tell me what you're thinking, and what you want."

Loki looks wrecked, his red eyes gleaming and scanning Tony's face like there's something hidden in his hairline.

"I-I don't-" Loki pleads. Tony grabs him by the back of the neck and squeezes. Wraps a finger in his long hair and pulls, and watches Loki melt into it. Watches him make the adaptation and nod weakly.

"I know it's tough for you. I'm willing to be whatever you need to make this easier." Tony says, running his finger lightly down Loki's neck groove, letting him feel Tony and break down what he's feeling. "I want you so much. But you have to meet me halfway."

"Give me the red one then." Loki murmurs, scratchy and low through his stretched back throat. Tony tightens his hand in Loki's hair.

It feels harsh, hurting him when he was dying minutes ago, but that's why it's necessary. The vital signs were dropping slowly, Loki would have noticed days ago. He could have written a letter, he could have come back early. This man who has taken over Tony's entire life is killing himself, and he can't allow that. Ever again.

"Promise me, Loki. I've told you what I want, so promise me." Tony demands. Loki squeezes his eyes closed and clutches at Tony's forearms, but he makes his lips move.

"I promise to tell you what I think and what I want." Loki whispers sharply, shrinking as far into the thin cushion of the gurney as he can. Tony loosens his grip, and simultaneously that angry knot inside him loosens too.

Good behavior earns a reward, that's the new world order, so Tony folds down the metal rails on one side and straddles Loki's hips. Carefully wrapping his arms under Loki's and around his back, he pulls him into an embrace that engulfs Tony in warm, awkwardly long limbs. He runs his hands over Loki's back, over strong shoulder blades and delicate ribs. When Loki shivers he presses harder and reaches so he is cheek to cheek and whispering in Loki's ear.

"Thank you, Loki." Tony says with as much warmth and conviction as he can. "And I promise you'll always be safe with me. No matter what you do, you and your kids will be safe."

"You can't possibly promise that." Loki says, brittle and soft while he clings to Tony.

"I'm a genius, billionaire, philanthropist, demi-god. I can promise anything I want." Tony says and reaches for the red Gatorade. Uncaps it and holds it out. "Bottoms up."

Loki takes it and turns it upside down like a keg. He meets Tony's eyes while he does it with a _see, this is me cooperating, look at me g_ o expression. It's cheeky, and playful, and it breaks Tony inside. It's everything, absolutely everything he's wanted since the awful morning Loki left.

It's also a blatant challenge, so Tony rubs a deep stroke up Loki's stomach lines and laughs when he chokes. He totally loses his shit when Loki glares up at him through a curtain of hair that falls in his face while he hacks up a lung.

"What, you thought I wasn't gonna make it fun?" Tony smirks, then feigns shock. "You really thought I was just gonna sit here and watch you drink electrolyte juice."

"Perhaps I've forgotten your childish ways." Loki wheezes, but there's a smile hidden in the hair. He can see the dimples.

"Then _perhaps_ I need to remind you. Come on, you have half the bottle left." Tony says, snapping his fingers and reaching down to drag a hand up Loki's belly right when he starts to drink. Loki is ready for it this time, and though he has a few close calls he takes it down like a senior at a party college. Tony has to admit it's kind of impressive. He's pleased enough to see the color coming back to Loki that he doesn't molest him while he drinks the blue bottle. That's not what tonight is about.

Tonight, Tony decides, is about convincing Loki to accept help. Proving he can rely on him. So he smooths the blanket over Loki's legs and peels the lid off the yogurt cup. It's one of Bruce's, so of course it's Greek, healthy, and thick as paste. Tony stirs it up just to make it resemble proper yogurt and holds the spoon out for Loki.

'I can feed myself." he grumbles, glaring like the spoon threatened his grandmother.

"Yeah." Tony says, "But I liked what we did earlier. I think you did too. So I want to do it again."

It's painstaking spelling it out, and it feels like the explanation removes half the appeal, but this is the new normal. This is their shambling relationship at ground zero, and he's not taking anything for granted. They tried to do this the fun way the first time. No dice. On round two he's going for broke.

"This is demeaning." Loki scowls, then checks Tony and sighs, "Fine, you may feed me the yogurt. The yogurt I am capable of eating myself."

"Amen." Tony groans, and spares Loki the choo choo noises. If Loki was stubborn before, he's down right mutinous after the first bite. He smacks his lips as if that might get rid of the gritty texture.

"That is vile."

"Yeah, it's fat-free." Tony agrees, looking down at the white gloop. "But you have to finish it. Your calcium is low. Must not be much milk on Asgard."

"Milk is for infants." Loki says, wrinkling his nose.

"Wow, Asgardians must have terrible bones." Tony deadpans, climbing off Loki's lap. He's getting stiff, and it seems like a bad precedent to be holding Loki down while he resists doing something.

He sits on the edge again, and puts the cup on the tray. Tony would really rather skip the stuff Loki doesn't like, honestly he would. But that would be a mistake.

"Will you eat it if I ask you to?"

"Yes." Loki sniffs, too quickly for Tony's comfort.

"Why?" he asks, because there's a teachable moment somewhere in here, if he can find it. A point he's been trying to make for a really long time. Loki crosses his arms like he's annoyed, but his shoulders slump in an unsure kind of way. Tony grabs Loki's hand and pulls it down, slotting their thumbs together and rubbing at his knuckles.

"Because you want me to?" Loki says. Tony smacks his free hand against Loki's lightly.

"Wrong answer." he chides, holding Loki's hand tighter when he tries to draw away. He leans in and makes sure Loki looks at him when he explains. "You're going to do it because I want you to be healthy. And this is necessary for your health. I won't make you do something unless it's important."

"You are acting very strange tonight." Loki says, and just like when Hela says it, the word strange has so many meanings.

"I'm done taking you at face value." Tony says, and this time it's not an attack, it's a promise. He nudges Loki forward and wedges himself between the cushion and the frost giant, ignoring Loki's confused complaints while he arranges Loki so he's lying between Tony's legs and against his chest. He picks up the yogurt and wraps Loki in his arms.

"Ok, so why are you going to eat this?" Tony asks, realizing that he is seriously teaching remedial kink negotiation with a snack pack in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other.

"Because you want me to be healthy." Loki recites, and ok, maybe this isn't an awkward waste of time.

"Good." Tony says, and kisses him between the horns. "And if it gets to be too much, what's your safe word?"

"You cannot be serious." Loki hisses, rolling his eyes and fidgeting like he's going to bail, but he doesn't actually move.

"Loki." Tony warns, "Crawl before you walk."

"I would prefer the walk." Loki growls, throwing off Tony's arms, and sitting up. Tony has to swallow down a very pointed answer, and tugs Loki back down.

"Believe me I would too. But you're not there yet. So we're eating the fucking yogurt." Tony snaps, "What's your safe word?"

"Mjolnir." Loki spits, but relents to Tony's will. Actually he relaxes all the way into his lap and finds a comfortable spot for his head on Tony's shoulder.

"Ok." Tony exhales, working to hold back the now was that so hard.

Looking down at Loki's purple ears, he laments the death of his sex life. Au revoir les orgasms. Knowing how long it took to teach Thor to use a cell phone, he may well be feeding Loki yogurt cups and Gatorade for the next century.

He brings the spoon to Loki's mouth and lays the edge on his lip, lets him set the pace. He takes it in right away, and leaves the spoon clean. Eager to get it over with probably. Then he hides his face in Tony's neck while he fishes out the next bite.

Loki looks fragile, accepting the food Tony gives him and gagging at the taste, making himself swallow. He's holding himself with his crossed arms and stretching the blanket between his fingers like he does when he is freaking out.

Tony can't believe this is actually that challenging for him. It's not that complicated. You just say _I want_ and fill in the blank. Or the opposite, in this case. And if you realize you can't do it then you say no. It's really simple.

But, he reminds himself, Loki is a dictator's son. He didn't have individual wants before two years ago. He wasn't allowed to. And that's why Tony needs to do this for him, no matter how stupid the exercise, or how many tries it takes.

Loki deserves to have an opinion of his own. He needs to learn how to have one, or else he's never going to understand why Tony's so pissed at him about the apple.

Of course Loki doesn't get it. It's not like anyone asked him if he wanted to eat the apple, or get adopted, or invade Earth. Someone wanted him to do all that and so he did. So why shouldn't Loki do the same to Tony? That was Loki's world, and nobody is going to change it but him.

The spoon scrapes the empty cup and Tony sets it aside. Loki is shaking, so Tony pulls the blanket up and holds him around the shoulders. Kisses him behind the ear, and on the back of his neck.

"I'm proud of you, Loki." Tony says, "That was really good."

And Loki moans. Deep, hot, sex moans. Totally unexpected, totally out of place in the pristine white lab. It's hardly the first time he's said it, hell it's probably the twentieth time tonight, but it's the first time Loki knows he earned it and clearly it affects him.

Yeah, Tony's no master of kink but his instincts are accurate. Some part of Loki wants this, maybe even needs it. Needs someone to open his brain and build him up from the inside. Tony isn't sure he trusts himself to do that, but it's not like he can trust anyone else with Loki.

Not wanting the moment to be over, he picks up the cup of ice chips and runs one over Loki's chapped lips, waits for it to melt and sooth the dryness. His mouth slides open, tongue reaching out to lick at the cool water on Tony's fingers and he pulls it away.

"Keep it closed. I'll tell you went to open." he rumbles into dark hair and Loki listens, finally doesn't protest or complain. He just does it and shivers when Tony whispers. "Good."

He cools Loki's mouth again, lets the ice melt all the way and drip down his face, just to test Loki's patience. He sucks on Loki's ear because it's there and he can't help himself, and then picks up another shard of ice.

"Ok, open up, that's it." he says, and lays the cube on Loki's tongue. He is surprised and pleased when Loki doesn't close his mouth after. He leaves it open, the melting ice sliding on his tongue, and waits for Tony to tell him what's next. God, why is that hot. Loki eating ice has no right to be that sexy.

"Perfect, Loki, close. Suck. That's it." Tony coaches. He feeds Loki chips until the cup is just a pool of water and Loki is a pool of Jotun in his lap. He kisses Loki, gently massaging his cool, wet lips with his tongue and pulling him out of his haze.

Loki sighs happily, cupping Tony's face and thanking him in a tiny voice he almost doesn't hear. Something slots into place at the rippling warmth Loki's voice inspires. Like a backup generator that's been sitting in the basement waiting to be used, connected to the system but not online. He didn't think it was possible for Loki to get any deeper in his shit. Wrong again.

"Lights, Jarvis." Tony says, and the room goes pleasantly black with the exception of the blinking monitors.

Loki sleeps on his side, so Tony rotates them, joins Loki under the blanket and throws his arm over his waist. It's not very comfortable. He's still in the jeans and band shirt from earlier and Loki is in one of those attractive patient smocks that let your butt hang out, but it's doable. It beats sleeping upstairs by himself.

"How do you feel, Loki?" he asks, prepared for another round of negotiating. Loki buries his head in his hands and sighs.

"Light." he says. "Untethered."

"Good." Tony replies. "Next time don't be such a shit."

"Yes, Anthony." Loki says, and dozes under Tony's arm.


	6. Chapter 6

In his rawest form, Tony honestly thinks Loki is a bullied kid who learned very early that you either stand by the biggest guy in the room or you fight him. Loki likes fucking big men too much to fight them, so it really shouldn't be so surprising that he's a master manipulator.

It is not lost on Tony, as he sits up on the gurney with Loki asleep in his lap, that this new development in their relationship makes him that guy. It's an uncomfortable place to sit. The one fighting him or fucking him depending on the day is supposed to be his lover, and it disturbs him that Loki must think of him like one of his past keepers. Someone to handle and appease on threat of exile.

The lab lights are still powered down, but it's a glass room inside a glass building, so the sun finds its way in. Diluted, sure, but it filters through and creates a soft, cool glow on the steel and concrete. It feels like morning, like a beginning, and he soaks it in.

He pulls up a workspace hologram and opens the legal folder. After some scrolling he finds a comparable document and makes some edits. It's weird. The whole thing is weird, but they abandoned normal the second Loki showed up in a cocktail dress on his second week on Earth and called him Mister Stark like some kind of sultry Bond girl. He feels a little gross looking back on that, knowing what he knows now.

It's boring work. His attention drifts off the display while he's waiting for the printer to do its thing, and checks out the tray near the bed. Two empty bottles, a dried up yogurt cup, and a crinkled granola wrapper. It's the one he pointed to, the one with the immune boost, and all the others are right where he left them. Loki woke himself up and ate it, just like Tony told him to. He feels like he's pressing his finger to his entire life and magic blue letters are hovering over it. _This feeling is true._ Yeah, ok, he can get used to this. He can be the big man beside Loki.

Loki looks human today, seems to have morphed in his sleep. Tony guesses that's a good sign, since Loki prefers this form but needs magic to hold it.

Some people are cute sleepers. Loki isn't one of them. He looks like a Halloween decoration laying on the laboratory bed, skeleton skinny with dark bruises discoloring his left cheek and forehead. He's snoring. His mouth is hanging open, and he's drooling all over Tony's jeans. Damn, he isn't cute at all. Some kind of smile takes over Tony's face anyway, which just proves he's defective.

The room gradually turns gold as the city wakes, the sun creeping over the neighboring buildings of Manhattan and Tony figures he better get up before Loki catches him being a sap. It takes a couple tries. Loki is really heavy when Tony doesn't want to move him.

The floor freezes his toes when he touches down, so he makes it to the printer and back at about the speed of sound. If it weren't already off the table for sanitary reasons, Tony officially rules out lab sex right then. Way too cold. They can get nasty in the workshop if they're itching for adventure. Nearly all of his cars have heated seats.

Loki yawns like a cat when Tony sits back on the gurney, legs sliding under the blanket and stretching out his toes. He smiles a good sleep grin. Maybe he isn't great to look at right now, but he is a lot more appealing while awake. Something about the way he moves.

"Good morning, darling." Tony says.

"I have to piss." Loki mumbles. Bless him, his sweet summer child. Tony taught him that slang. He's so proud.

"Hm, I've got some bottles."

"In your dreams, Stark." Loki smirks, pushing himself up to sit cross-legged near the medical tray.

"My dreams sound dirty." Tony says, eyebrows raised.

"Every part of you is utter filth." Loki replies warmly, touching a hand to Tony's jaw. "That is one thing I love about you."

There's a hitch before he says the word love, like he's never tried it out before. It echoes a few times when it hits Tony, and he tries to take it in stride. Fusses with the stack of paper in his hand. Sincerity is new, coming from Loki. Kind of intense. Intensely pleasurable.

"And here I thought you just wanted my dashing good looks." Tony smirks, because he refuses to call it blushing.

"You come with an offering." Loki observes, letting go of Tony's cheek with a satisfied look. He takes the printed contract and inspects it.

Technology easily could have allowed them to sign it digitally in a matter of seconds, and on any other occasion he would have done it that way. But while he worked this morning the folded parchment of Loki's letters kept poking him from his pants pocket, and he tapped print instead. Unwrapping Loki's gifts and holding the undeniable evidence of their connection has comforted him. He's a physical person, and he knows Loki is too.

"This is a sale of property." Loki states, flipping through pages, eyes narrow and thoughtful.

"Nice place." Tony says, "Big plot upstate. Call it a contingency."

"An unpredictable future event which may result from present action. What action might you be considering?" Loki muses, reading closely.

"Ok, fine, wrong word." Tony says, scratching his beard, "A safety net."

Loki hums, piercing Tony with a perceptive gaze.

"You think yourself a danger to me?" he asks. "Enough to warrant a property in my own name."

"Maybe I don't want to feel like a sugar daddy." Tony says, then supposes Loki might not know that particular slang. "It means-"

"I am familiar with the vernacular." Loki says, "Your world has unconventional views of ownership. On Asgard it is a high honor to be held in retainer by a respected person, regardless of services rendered."

"Well this isn't Asgard." Tony insists, aware that he sounds like a stubborn idiot. And that he doesn't want to think of he and Loki's fucking sprees as a service rendered.

"Indeed." Loki sighs, and is that regret? Tony files that reaction away, decides it requires further investigation. "Then this property is to be a sanctuary for me and mine should our union be broken."

Tony nods, because that's really all there is to it. The word union has a few connotations he shies away from, after the double cluster fuck of the rings and the apple, but that is essentially what they have.

Loki takes a long time reading. It's a little amusing, because Tony is pretty sure he's never personally read an entire legal document. Loki would though, he is the king of loopholes so of course he reads every word. He even asks Jarvis to define a few of the more obscure terms, and the feeling that interaction gives Tony doesn't have a corresponding word. His greatest invention being useful to his most valued person, there's no word for how that makes the engineer inside him preen.

Turning on the coffee machine, he gathers a few pens while he waits for it to heat up and make him a cup. Waiting is not Tony's strong suit, so by the time the coffee is ready two of the three pens are completely disassembled and rigged together into a sort of abomination that has absolutely no useful potential at all. It looks wrong in a pleasing way. He stirs in some sugar, because he doesn't hate himself today, and takes a sip. Nice. Papers rustle behind him and Loki calls back his attention.

"I do not see the purpose of this 'indemnity clause.'" Loki starts, sitting up straight with his shoulders square and indignant. "In the event of damage or loss, I believe I should pay for repairs myself."

"I have a lot of enemies, Loki. Even if I'm not on the deed, there's a chance someone could go after you to get to me. You've seen the Malibu pictures after the whole Extremis incident." Tony says.

"Yes, and I fail to see how my own actions in such a situation would not equally damage the property." Loki counters, tilting his jaw into a beautifully defiant edge, "If you are in danger, then I will use whatever force is necessary."

"Ok, so what?" Tony sighs, frustrated. "I don't care how it gets destroyed, I just want it in writing that I'll pay to fix it."

"Then it is not truly independent from you, is it?" Loki presses, smiling despite himself because he knows he caught Tony out. "And on the subject of payment, I cannot fathom how I shall pay the sum at which this property is valued."

"Ok, now that's not true." Tony points a finger at Loki, and looks to the ceiling, "Jarvis, do a One Ring check. Use today's gold market value and assume twenty four carat purity."

"Yes, sir." the phantom voice replies, then after a moment of processing informs him, "The floor sensors are not designed for this task, sir. I'm afraid the estimate is not very precise."

"Ballpark it, J, it's not like we're buying a Lichtenstein."

While they wait for the computer to respond, Tony takes the last survivor of the pens and draws a big x through the indemnity clause and initials below. Motions to Loki to do the same. His boyfriend nods as he initials, satisfied.

"At current market values, using a weight of 294, 900 ounces, the value of Mr. Liesmith's gold is $187 million dollars, sir."

"Not bad for a nest egg." Tony says, and laughs because it's the understatement of the century. "Congratulations, Lokes, in a year you'll be one of the richest men on Earth."

"That silly trinket?" Loki asks, eyes wide while he shifts to lay back on the gurney and stretch out his legs. "It has been a nuisance to Asgard's quartermaster since I commissioned it eight centuries ago. His thanks was most enthusiastic when I came to retrieve it as Odin Allfather."

"Incidentally, sirs, it would be wise to move the gold as soon as possible." Jarvis says, "It is approaching the maximum weight capacity of the penthouse floor."

Tony almost wants to leave it, just to see nine tons of gold rings rain down through the floor and over the Avengers headquarters below. Damn, that would be sick as fuck. He takes a sip from his coffee and walks back to Loki's gurney.

"Ok, get an appointment with a dealer on Monday. I'll have to get it all melted down and stored somewhere." Tony tells Jarvis and sits beside Loki's legs. With one hand on Loki's knee, he watches him. Loki chews his lip, looking down at the last page, where a series of lines await their signatures.

"The mortal faith in one another's word is baffling." Loki says, his shoulders bent and voice a bit dark, "How could this paper protect me from you, or you from me, if truly we are broken and hold only hate for each other?"

"I dunno, Lokes." Tony says, "But it's how human society works. We chose to build a world where we fight with words and not fists. As much as possible, anyway."

Predictably, the notion that his new home is run by weak mortals waving around pieces of paper does not appeal to Loki. But he does accept Tony's word, and with a quick look to check his face, Loki places the contract on an unoccupied section of the bedside tray and signs his name. The tray is crowded with food wrappers and empty bottles, so there's really only room enough to sign, the corners of the packet hanging off the edge. His signature is pointed and elegant, the perfect balance of graceful loops and dangerous drops.

"A noble ideal, as charming as it is naive." Loki drawls, and spins the contract so it faces Tony. He lays the pen down on top with a graceful snap, and Tony scrawls his own mark. After a lifetime of signing a couple hundred documents a day, it doesn't really have the same significance for him as it does Loki. It's just a squiggle of letters and one thing off the list. An important thing, sure, but he knew Loki would accept it.

His boyfriend can blame Tony's silly moral compunctions if he wants, that's why he brought them up in the first place, but he knows one day Loki will understand this. Right now it is good enough for Loki to be comforted by the fail safe. Which he is. Maybe he doesn't make a show of it, but Tony knows his tells. He sees Loki's shoulders drop and the tension around his eyes lessen, the slightly pleased play of teeth on the inside of his cheek. Loki may not believe this contract will hold water, but he is still touched by the gesture, by the message Tony is sending. That's enough.

"On the subject of agreements, I suppose I should uphold ours." Loki says. One side of his mouth quirks up in a peevish little grin. Flopping the contract on Tony's lap, he turns to the tray and assesses what he has left. It's not much. Two more power bars and a yellow Gatorade. Loki makes quick work of them while Tony watches. It settles something fierce and worried in the back of his mind, something he recognizes from Pepper's bout with Extremis. The urge to protect is a little unexpected at such a bland moment, but Tony shrugs into it. This is him and Loki, nothing is ever expected. A few minutes later shiny plastic wrappers crinkle into a ball in Loki's hand, all gone.

"I am ready for my reward now." Loki says archly, sliding off the gurney and wobbling on his feet. There's a definite hint of flirtation, a little acknowledgement of how fucking weird last night was, but it's undermined by his shaky footing. Tony doesn't make a production of it. A plastic tube still hangs from Loki's wrist, so he wheels the steel IV stand around the gurney and shows Loki how he can stabilize himself with it, how he shouldn't let the tube drag.

"Right away your highness." Tony mocks gently, "But we'll hit the bathroom first. You gotta piss, and I think we both need showers."

Tony leads him through the newly constructed Avengers floors. The whole top half of the tower had to be rebuilt after the invasion, but this section was an even more recent addition. A whole unrelated incident involving Spider-Boy and some rogue tech had ended with a giant bot embedded in the north side of the top ten stories. It was kind of unfortunate, but he'd been looking for an excuse to scrap the old layout anyway.

These days the Avengers floors are more of a cathedral-like atrium, encased in glass and housing an internal network of staircases and interconnected partitions. The architecture magazines deemed it "an inspired visual metaphor for transparency and scientific advancement." Yeah, more like Tony got tired of constantly repairing any walls between Thor and his hammer, and Hawkeye had a bad habit of nesting in any vent he could reach. With the new arrangement all he had to do was order a new sheet of glass whenever Point Break got frisky, and the whole system was heated and cooled by one very eco-friendly heat exchanger 150 feet up. Try styling on that, Barton.

Given that the rest of the team still think Tony's either crazy or brainwashed for banging Thor's punk rock brother, Loki hasn't been down here before. The trip is pretty drawn out, what with the number of stairs he has to lug both Loki and his saline drip up, but it's otherwise uneventful. Steve and Co. are laying low in Wakanda and Thor is, well, mourning probably. Off-world. Loki follows him barefoot, still in a smock and not in any way bothering to cover his ass, so it's probably for the best.

Once they get to the top floor Tony angles them toward the bathroom, and points out whatever he thinks might interest Loki. Mostly amenities. He knows Loki doesn't give a shit where people live or what booze is on tap, but he points out the training room and Bruce's hippie dippie zen garden. No questions follow his half-assed tour, so he just babbles until Loki's voice interrupts him when they're almost to the bathroom.

"Why is the Tesseract here?" Loki asks, sharp, and Tony just about reboots his brain.

"Well, because that's my lab. Kind of a, you know, personal space thing." Tony says, backtracking.

"You touched it?" Loki says with alarm. Ah jinkies, gang. We might be in trouble.

"Ah, it was on my side. Fun side remember? Did we talk about that? It's kind of a blur-"

"I very specifically put that in a safe place." Loki says with a sliver of flinty madness in his posture. He stands with his free arm in a casting stance as though hostiles might drop from the ceiling any minute.

"Uh, last I checked the toy bin ain't exactly Fort Knox, Slugger." Tony says, hands up like there is a gun pointed at him. Loki's angry, so potato potahto.

"It is enchanted so only the owner can open it. You really think me so reckless?" Loki says, "I assumed you wise enough to leave it alone."

"Pro-tip. Don't ever bet on me not doing something." Tony says, split down the middle between self deprecation and utter sincerity. "Can I put my hands down? Are we fighting? Cause, for the record, I'm pretty sure you'll still curbstomp me."

Loki drags the IV stand into the lab, talking over his shoulder as he removes the cube from the vice.

"Had I trousers, rest assured I would best you most handily." he boasts.

"Woah, what are you doing with it?" Tony asks.

The cube pulses in Loki's hand like it's being welcomed home. It would be intimidating if Loki didn't need a metal stand to stay vertical.

"I am demonstrating why you should not touch objects you do not understand." Loki says.

Tony is about to unleash a spiel about science explaining the unknown, when the cube abruptly changes color in Loki's hand and shuts him up. Instead of the beaming, cold light, it is now a sloshing mass of blood red liquid with pits of absolute darkness in its circling waves. It seems alive, not ever settling like a liquid should, but instead defying gravity and crashing chaotically against what Tony can now see is a magic container. While he watches, the cluster of bubbling something clenches into a tight sphere and strikes, violent and fast against one face of the cube. He flinches away.

"That's not the Tesseract." Tony says intelligently.

"Oh, it is." Loki says, sliding his hand around the faces of the cube and returning it's blue appearance. A glamour, he called it once, when he thought Tony wasn't paying attention. "The Tesseract is merely a vessel for containing and transporting powerful items."

Tony crosses his arms, inferring. "Then you switched what's inside it."

"It now contains the weapon which Malekith the dark elf extracted from Jane Foster." Loki says.

"The Aether." Tony recalls. Thor mentioned it once, when Tony made him explain Loki's death a second time. The memory puts him on edge, even more than the disturbing reveal already did. He'd fired uranium at a cube of space goo that could infect and kill him in days. Shit, no wonder Loki looks alarmed.

"I did not trust Thor and his quartet of fools to handle it's keeping." Loki says, vanishing the cube with another circling gesture of his hand. "It was simple enough to create a decoy and replace it."

"You could have warned me." Tony grumbles. Being the last one to know everything is getting very old. Loki makes to start explaining, and he can already tell what a long conversation this is going to be. His feet are freezing on the concrete and Loki's legs are trembling, his knuckles white where they clutch the IV stand tightly.

Tony cuts him off by pointing to the communal bathroom a few feet down the hall.

"Hey, let's talk about this somewhere warmer. I'm getting fucking frostbite here."

Loki doesn't even disguise his relief when Tony brings him a stool and gets him seated under a steaming shower. He winces when Tony removes the IV, staring at the massive needle and wringing his fingers like he's afraid they might not work anymore. Then Tony turns on the hot water faucet and Loki seems to forget where he even is. The water pools under his long body, turning his hair shiny and smooth and rippling where Loki's toes curl into the warmth. He groans, just sitting under the spray and enjoys it.

Tony pumps some shampoo from a dispenser on the wall and starts massaging Loki's scalp, working it until his hair is more white bubbles than black strands. It's a nice feeling, looking down while he helps Loki get a little closer to normal. His partner sighs under his touch, pleased and regretful as he wraps a hand around Tony's wrist, and looks up at him through the steam and dripping water.

"Weak as I am to your pampering, I can do this myself." he says, "And it would be a far greater gift if you could bring me clothes."

Tony can't argue with that. Actually, he's kind of chagrined that he didn't think that far ahead. He nods but finishes rinsing Loki's hair because he wants to, and he needs to get the soap off his hands anyway. Two-fer.

The Avengers bathroom is nice, but not really Tony's style. Unfortunately, part of it being a team space meant that he had to accommodate the team's opinions. Never in a million years would he have expected so many opinions to focus on a fucking line of showers and sinks. Steve wanted something low maintenance while Bruce wanted a sauna. Natasha insisted on gender neutrality even though none of the boys were actually comfortable peeing in front of her. And finally Clint wanted a TV in the mirror just because everyone else got something. God, it had been a nightmare. So it kind of figures that the place ended up looking like the complete franken-room that it is.

The floors are old school white hex tile, like Steve requested, but with granite showers in a classic military line and slate privacy dividers because Tony is not getting naked next to five Adonises and Natasha with his self-esteem in tact. He used to be pretty proud of his figure back during the early days of Iron Man. He was in his prime, boxed three times a week, and lugged engines around the shop the rest of the time. Yeah, not anymore. The dreadful approach of his fiftieth birthday and the frankly unfair alien competition degraded whatever measure of pride he once felt for his physique. So now privacy walls are his contribution to the bathroom collage.

Passing the line of marble sinks with individual televisions in the mirrors, he turns the corner to the bay of lockers on the other side of the wall. They are standard steel, several feet wide to accommodate chest plates and vibranium shields, set over two foot lockers each. Tony crosses his arms, looking around the parallel lines bisected by a classic wood bench on steel poles and does some real thinking. Seven lockers to choose from and absolutely none of them are Loki's size or shape, not even close.

Sliding open Steve's locker he finds a pair of sweatpants that smell dirty and a perfectly pressed set of pleat front khakis. Ha, that's hilarious. Next. Clint also wears thirty fours, but the hem is short on Tony so on Loki they'd be a fetching pair of capris. Another hilarious mental image. Briefly he wonders if Loki would go pink in the name of good fitting clothes, because he knows Natasha has a stack of lululemons in exactly girl Loki's size. Tantalizing mental image, but he figures it would be insensitive to suggest it.

In the end he finds a v-neck in Bruce's handily labeled clean section and digs out a pair of joggers from his own locker that he never wears because they make him feel ancient next to the trendy millennials that run around central park in similar digs. They are also about three inches too long, but he isn't about to acknowledge that, even in his own mind. He has no idea about shoe size, apart from massive, so he grabs a one-size pair of foam flip flops from the basket by the sauna and figures he's covered. Grabbing a set of loose workout clothes from his own stash, he rounds the corner to find Loki. Then he catches his reflection in the mirror above the sinks and, while blinking at the unbelievable travesty happening above his hairline, remembers that Loki will need a brush. Shit, that's a tough one.

Only two Avengers have hair long enough to justify an actual brush, and he's not going anywhere near Natasha's cosmetics. Sure, he can be reckless, but that is just suicide. Thor's locker kind of looms, not because Tony has any concerns about rifling through his shit. Nah, Point Break wouldn't care less, but Loki definitely would have a problem using big bro's hair brush to tease out his lovely glam metal locks. Welp, not like he has a choice. Tony is actually kind of glad he finds Thor's hair brush before some bird tries to nest in it. Apparently nobody told him he needs to empty it sometime this decade. Ick.

A rather traumatizing trip to the garbage can later, he returns to the showers to find Loki vegging out in a cloud of steam, just letting the water bill climb. God he loves him. Loki has moved the stool so he can rest his shoulders back on the slate partition without missing any of the water and laid his head back. Water drips deliciously over his adam's apple, sliding to rest in the dip between his collarbones, and then all the way down. Sure, he's still half-dead and unnerving in the way his skin stretches tight around his bones, but apparently Tony isn't capable of resisting him in any shape or state of health. His hair frames him like an 80s wet dream, messy around his strong cheekbones and plastered to the line of his neck and athletic shoulders. Lazily he turns his head so his temple rests on the black divider and favors Tony with a look through his low hung eyelashes. Then he smiles a tiny, unintentional quirk of his lips and drills into him with those intelligent eyes. He would have to be dead not to see the invitation.

Tony nearly drops the clothes on the soaked floor, and has to restart his sentence twice because his brain is not firing on all cylinders. "Got your things." he chokes.

"I see that." Loki says, sitting up and turning off the tap. He breaks eye contact to wring out his hair, and it sets Tony free from that paralyzing electricity. "It is a shame we have so much to discuss."

"We could rain check." Tony says, maybe too eager, but what does he have to lose. They are equally as helpless when it's like this, the world far away and the two of them fighting the pull. This is the reason they're here, the reason they can't seem to keep the sex casual and the goodbyes breezy. There's just a circuit that seems to come online when they are nearby and alone that turns them into a gravitational field. Loki pushes his hair back from his face and leans with his arms on his legs, hands clasped and appraising him.

"I suspect you would accuse me of diverting your attention, if I took what I want from you now." he purrs, and that's just unfair. Party foul. Nobody should deliver such a great reason not to fuck them while their voice begs you to do it.

"Well I still need a shower." Tony suggests, shakily placing the pile in his arms on a bench in the stall across. "We can multi-task."

Loki raises one hand to cup his chin and smirks real dirty. "You have the most enthralling ideas."

"My genius is finally recognized." Tony quips, and shrugs out of his tee. Loki motions him closer with a delicate flick of his fingers and he obeys, laying his forearms over Loki's shoulders. His eyes follow his partner's nimble fingers as they pop open the button on his jeans and hook into his belt loops.

Loki only barely pulls down, draws out the motion of lowering Tony's pants so that every tiny catch and drag runs vibrations through his underwear and over his cock. His breath hitches and the involuntary motion gives him a sharp brush of friction, and he feels himself starting to go stiff. After what feels like forever, the waistband passes his hips and his pants hit the floor. Clint tried to make a joke about his loose fit pants once, but it was kind of weak when Steve was right there wearing actual dad slacks, and hey, here is Tony's prize. One sinful slide and he's halfway there, no uncoordinated wiggling or caught-on-the-ankles dance moves like Pepper used to do. Loki seems to appreciate his taste as well, if his impish smile means anything.

Loki runs a hand just a little too far right to touch anything fun and starts pulling down Tony's boxer briefs with a single finger, just running it from one side to the other when he can't get any further. Halfway down the band gets stuck on his hardening cock, and Tony thinks they are abandoning the talk all together. Suddenly that seems like an awesome plan. The best. Full marks plus extra credit. Then Loki starts laying it all on the table like his wet, perfectly fuckable lips aren't inches from Tony's dick.

"I first encountered the Mad Titan after I fell from Asgard's rainbow bridge in an attempt to end my own life." Loki says, drawing down Tony's boxers.

Tony puts a hand on the slate partition for a variety of reasons. Number one, he's almost hard, which feels incredibly inappropriate now. Number two Loki's tapping his leg in an obvious signal to step out of his underwear, and of course there's the total mindfuck of him actively deciding to get Tony aroused while informing him of a past suicide attempt. A lot of wires cross and in the end Tony just lets Loki untangle his boxers from his feet and waits for him to continue.

"It is unwise to say his name, but what matters is that he is powerful, a warmonger, and a respected leader of many armies. I rarely pay much attention to ethics when choosing allies, but I admit that I would not have dealt with him under other circumstances." Loki continues, reaching to turn the water back on and adjusting the temperature. "The situation was dire. My fall left me weakened, without leverage, and still very much seeking death. As you well know, the realization of my heritage left me-"

Loki huffs, seemingly unable to put words to the experience.

Attempting to distract him, Tony asks, "Why shouldn't you say his name?"

It seems a good detour, since Loki answers it with much less difficulty.

"Names bear a unique significance to mages. Our seidr is formed by the fusion of energy to our sense of self. To say the name of one so powerful risks attracting the attention of their magic, and by extension the user of it." Loki explains. "And I have already earned the Titan's ire. At the time it seemed a most expedient way to die."

Loki reaches to the dispenser on the wall and pumps out a palmful of shampoo. Tugging at Tony's hand, he directs him to sit in front. Normally Tony would never use the cheap stuff down here, but this is a special circumstance. He can apologize to his poor abused follicles later. He sits, and long fingers wind their way around his hair. He's glad for the tingling comfort of Loki's nails behind his ears because the things coming out of his mouth start scaring Tony.

"After I failed to succumb to the beatings and mind games of his allies, it seems he decided I was more useful as a tool than a toy. I was given a scepter, which you are already familiar with, and tasked with retrieving the Tesseract. They thought my duress would be sufficient motivation-"

"Well obviously not." Tony interrupts, "You wanted to… to die."

"Precisely." Loki says, covering Tony's eyes with his hand while he pulls him under the shower head to rinse. "I could not decide what I wanted to do. Should I intentionally fail, and prove myself so worthless that I could not be kept? Or perhaps, given sufficient time and information, the defenders of Earth might devise an honorable death for me in battle? That seemed the more appealing option, since I knew you would not hesitate to land the blow."

Loki guides Tony back from the water and when he removes his hand Tony looks up at him, hating the pity that he can't keep from his face. He knows Loki detests that look, and he understands that too. But he can't help it, this is the man he adores revealing the circumstances by which they met in a time of war. A time in which Tony tried to kill him. Loki stares at the falling water as he continues.

"My indecision lead me to where we met in your penthouse. I was confused, worried I would succeed and at the same time terrified that even failure would not be enough to guarantee my demise. My greatest fear, being returned to Asgard to face Odin, seemed ever more real."

Tony turned to face Loki. His partner was intense, just as pale and uncertain looking as on the day he describes. It feels like touching is too much, but he wants to offer something. He lays a hand on Loki's long, narrow foot and squeezes. It's odd, but Loki seems to break from a trance when he does that, and meets his eyes.

"What changed?" Tony asks, because obviously something did. By the time they beamed Loki back to Asgard he'd looked calm, relieved even. Like this was all according to plan. That look more than anything convinced Tony that Loki threw the invasion. Even while he drove Bruce to the airport that day, he'd come to that conclusion, and only believed it more when he reviewed the crashing of the helicarrier. Loki hadn't accomplished all that much by getting captured. Aside from wasting a cool billion in taxpayer dollars.

"Well, I tried to enthrall you with the scepter and it did not work." Loki admitted, smiling wryly. "You no doubt remember, for you landed your first of many poor attempts at humoring me. But you do not know what I saw when the scepter touched your reactor."

"Please tell me it showed you my dick." Tony jokes, standing to pull some body wash from the dispenser. Loki shakes his head, perfectly disapproving.

"What Than-' Loki halts, eyes wide at his near mistake. One hand covers his mouth in a very un-Loki way, and when he catches himself he sets both palms very carefully on his knees. Exhaling, he starts again, "What th-the Titan did not want me to know, and what I discovered when I touched your reactor, was that the scepter contains an ancient focus of power known as the Mind Stone. When I attempted to use it on your reactor, the stone believed it had touched its sibling, the Space Stone, and thus refused to harm it."

"The notes that helped me build that reactor were based on my father's study of the Tesseract." Tony says, realizing even as he speaks, "Oh, so the Tesseract used to hold this, uh, Space Stone. And that's how you and Selvig made portals with it. By controlling space."

Loki smiles rigidly up at him, clearly anxious about the topic, but still impressed.

"You really are very clever, Anthony." Loki says, "Yes, it did. But allow me to finish."

Loki leans back against the partition again, closing his eyes as though trying to picture the memory.

"I was granted two insights, visions you might call them. First, as I have said, was the identity of the scepter's power. It's objectives and ambitions. The other one," Loki pauses, eyes scanning Tony up and down as he stands under the shower and scrubs the soap off his chest. "The other showed me you. All of your abilities and accomplishments, but more than that. It showed me your loneliness, your loyalty, and your potential. The stone has a consciousness, and it is attracted to luminous minds. It tells the user how to ensnare them."

The idea that a weapon could be sentient sounds far fetched to Tony, but he can't argue with the man that wielded it.

"Well I did wonder how you knew my fondness for Bond girls." Tony admits, if only because he doesn't know how to respond to anything else Loki said. Loki doesn't laugh, he just tilts his head in his will you be serious way, and reaches to a shelf by the partition door where a couple of towels are folded.

"You are not so special." Loki quips, waiting until Tony turns off the faucet to hand him a towel. "Any Earth man who has an interest in women has at least one Bond girl to aspire to. They are varied and numerous."

They towel off, Tony silently digesting about ten different revelations at once. For a few minutes it's overwhelming and a bit terrifying to consider this Than guy, somewhere out in the universe right now destroying some other planet. Or maybe plotting a second attempt at Earth. The various scenarios start circling until Loki vigorously rubs his head with a towel folded in two and wraps it in a twist to hold his damp hair out of his face. Tony smiles while Loki's view of him is blocked, and decides not to tell him that Jori and Hela both do it the exact same way.

He helps Loki to his feet, which are a bit steadier after the break but still not great, and together they hobble to the locker room bench. It's maybe a little unnecessary, but by this point they've been in the shower for what feels like hours and Tony gets claustrophobic. Loki doesn't seem to care. He leans into Tony with an arm around his shoulders and follows, lost in thought. Once he has Loki settled, he sets about getting himself dressed, and decides to start with the easiest line of questioning.

"So the stones have objectives." he begins, sitting beside Loki and pulling on a pair of nylon running pants.

"Yes. They are-" Loki pauses, struggling with his socks like he always does. As far as Tony can tell they wear some kind of wrapped wool stockings on Asgard. Stockings that are totally hilarious, but that he has never once laughed about because he only sees them on the rare occasion that he and Loki are having sex and Loki opts to get undressed the old fashioned way. Which is almost never.

"Here." Tony says, turning the black bundle so that it actually looks foot shaped and showing Loki the opening.

"Thank you." Loki says, and as bizarre as it sounds, just doing that calms Tony down. It makes everything he's learning manageable, because maybe there is a looming threat hanging over their heads, but they are still here and alive. They are safe in the tower putting Loki's feet in socks like any other morning.

"As I was saying, Odin told Thor and I a story when we were children, about the first war of Asgard. It was a story of how Malekith fabricated the Aether from the remnants of creation to fight Odin's father Bor. Apparently the elves came from darkness, and wished for the rest of existence to return to darkness."

"A singularity?" Tony suggests, pulling on his own socks and watching Loki fiddle with the ties on the speckled charcoal jogging pants. They look great on him, the bastard. "As in the Big Bang?"

Loki blinks at him, confused and a bit annoyed at the discovery of yet another Earth term that means nothing to him. The first few months involved a lot of vocabulary, and although he's gotten better at admitting when Tony loses him, he also gets more peeved as his knowledge expands and he needs to ask less and less. These days it is a rare thing, and apparently it pisses Loki off. Fair enough. It will probably piss Tony off too, when it comes time to meet the in-laws and not follow half the conversation.

"It's a theory about how the universe was created." Tony clarifies, "It began as concentrated chaos, then some kind of reaction caused an explosion that created the stars. As the stars run out of energy over time, the universe will collapse again back to nothing."

Loki says, "Your application of that theory is quite uncanny. For the Mind Stone wishes to return to its origins, just as your theory states the universe will one day collapse to nothing."

"So you're saying these stones want to destroy the universe." Tony says, and the idea is such an insane notion, so completely big that it comes out kind of flat. He can't really fear it, because it's just so distant and massive.

Loki looks at him then, and although every word he said in the last hour sounded strained, this time it takes him quite a long time to get it out. Tony gets his shirt on and jacket zipped in the time it takes Loki to compose his thoughts, bare chested and tangling the rumpled ball of Bruce's shirt between his hands.

Loki stares at the folds of the v-neck like they hold the secret to everything and murmurs, "It was an odd feeling, to have my mind invaded by a part of the universe itself and see my desire for self destruction reflected. To realize that all existence is as fickle and doomed as me, and that my life and my anger has no bearing on it."

Once the words are out Loki won't let go of Tony's gaze, like he needs to know his thoughts. Tony feels himself inhale and shiver, scratching nervously at his beard while he tries to say something, anything. He's a little ashamed that he doesn't have anything that deep to respond with. Well, he's got one thing he wants to know, but it seems unimportant and petty. Not really worth bringing up.

For a minute, he holds it in, hoping that for once he'll be divinely inspired, and that he will construct the most perfect, sensitive, insightful response. It will be sincere and it will be full of truth and Loki will be better for hearing it. But nothing comes to mind, nothing.

"So then why throw me out the window?" Tony asks. Loki smirks, but it's not amused. It's painful and reflexive.

"Because I was angry. I knew then that I needed to get back to Asgard. I did not wish to live any longer, but I realized I was too proud to die a tool in someone's hand." Loki growled, growing agitated and tense.

"You see the stone reflected my own desire, and in it I saw what I wanted so clearly. I wanted my family to mourn. I wanted to prove to them, with their own pain and regret, that I was loved and betrayed. And I wanted to force them to remember me with pride, to hail my sacrifice as a loyal son. If Odin spared me I had a chance, if he executed me I was no worse off."

Loki laughs bitterly as the words seem to pour out of him, beyond control and seething.

"Such a pathetic goal. And now you know. You see the weakness in my heart for what it is." Loki hisses, bent over and digging fingers into the ball of fabric he's clutching to his stomach like a lifeline.

"Hey, now, don't put words in my mouth." Tony says, tugging the shirt away. "Stop, come here."

Loki relinquishes the shirt and then he crumbles. He doesn't cry, or scream, or anything like Tony expects, he just sits there hugging himself and bending almost so his head is on his knees, shaking and sucking in breaths. He may not know what to do about living in a suicidal universe, but he knows how to comfort Loki.

Tony stands behind him and puts a hand over his collarbone like a necklace. Loki goes limp in his grasp, and Tony pulls him upright, moves his hand to secure his arm around Loki's neck, his chin tucked over Tony's elbow. It's not tight, not even close to choking, it just makes him look up and surrounds his vision and hearing with warm skin. Loki looks at him, and his upside-down eyes beg for something he doesn't seem able to articulate. He looks lost and sad and Tony understands. He really does.

He kisses him, because it seems like the thing to do. When someone looks at you like that, you can't not. Loki's response is weak, so he stops, moves up to his forehead and kisses him soft and dry above his eyebrows. Loki's eyes slide closed and he exhales. Tony touches their foreheads together and waits, does the weird fucking Asgardian forehead thing and keeps Loki pinned and stable and warm.

"What will you do now, Stark? Now that you know." Loki whispers.

Tony replies with his mouth to Loki's brows, quietly, as if speaking loud would make it too raw.

"I'm going to make sure you don't kill yourself, you maniac. What the fuck else do you think I can do?"

For the moment he gives Loki the rough gift of total, brutal honesty and keeps his head down so he doesn't have to meet his crazy, bloodshot eyes. He lets go when Loki starts to twitch and fidget, and reaches for the hair brush on the bench beside them. His jacket is damp and clingy thanks to Loki's wet hair.

The black hairs are tangled badly from their little stranglehold hug, but Tony has done this once before. It's calming for both of them to untangle the ends, to work slowly upwards a little at a time as the knots come loose. It's painstaking. Loki's hair is hardly straight and smooth on a good day, but there's no rush. Eventually the brush slides from Loki's crown to the tips, and Tony does it over and over again, waiting and coaxing him back with something better than the horrors in his head.

Loki settles after a few minutes, and his head falls to his chest. Tony swaps the brush for his fingers then and recalls how Thor sometimes weaves braids into the hair above his ears, running back from his temples and down. He doesn't know how to do that, not exactly, but he learned how to braid copper wires on his father's workbench at three years old.

The motion is still buried somewhere in his kinetic memory and his fingers seem to do it on their own. It works, although it's a lot harder to pull off when the wires keep trying to split into even smaller wires and occasionally poke out in random directions. When he gets to the end he realizes he can't just twist and solder them, so he lets them hang. Loki will probably hate them anyway, because they'll look like Thor, and take them out. He isn't complaining right now though, so Tony keeps going. He does three on each side, and is a little proud to discover that they aren't even crooked or lopsided. Actually, he thinks, Loki looks rather handsome like that. Neat and archaic like he ought to be. He's fourteen hundred years old after all.

"So you believe this Titan is after you?" Tony asks, kneading Loki's neck.

"I know it." Loki admits, "He seeks the stones so that he may make an empire of the cosmos. I not only failed to deliver the Space Stone, but lost the Mind Stone in my attempt."

"And now you have the Aether too." Tony says, "I assume from Odin's story that it's another stone."

Tony's hand finds a knot in his neck and Loki rolls his head to give him access.

"Yes." Loki sighs. "It is called the Reality Stone. I do not know the boundaries of its power. Malekith was not able to use it, despite having forged it himself."

"Well most sentient things don't obey their fathers." Tony grunts. Loki actually chuckles at that, and nods. He turns on the bench, one leg folded beside him so he can look up at Tony's face.

"I do wonder whether Malekith's desire to bring the world to darkness infected the stone at it's creation, or if it was the other way around." he says.

"Does it matter now?" Tony asks, putting the brush down on the bench and kissing Loki while he's down there. You know, just to be efficient.

"I suppose it does not." Loki agrees, and snatches the abused v-neck from where it's bundled on the floor.

A/N: Wowwee, what a chapter. Thank you all for reading along, I really appreciate you. If you're enjoying yourself, reviews are really appreciated. I'm not a very experienced writer and constructive criticism, or even just "Loved it, thanks!" go a long way.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony is starting to get suspicious of that metaphorical place twelve step programs call "rock bottom." It's a place that his life revisits pretty frequently; first from the drinking, then the drugs, then drinking again, and after that Afghanistan. When he sits in front of a crowd of reporters with titanium in his sternum and a burger in his hand, he relaxes into it because, come on, this has got to be what the drug counselors warned him about. There can't possibly be anything worse than this.

Other shitty eras of his life came with some warning. There was the morning he woke up in a bathtub with the naked college girl thanking him for the internship, and the midnight puke that came out a little red and made him think okay alcohol, you win, let's make a bargain. Obediah gave him none of that, and neither did the nuke, or Pepper spontaneously combusting, or Loki crashing into the coffee table. It just happens, and between one second and the next Tony goes from thinking he can handle this to knowing that he can't. Every time he thinks he has hit the final valley, the bedrock cracks under him like thin ice and he plummets again.

So when he picks up Loki from the locker room bench and carries him to the elevator, he doesn't so much as think that things can't get worse. They always, always do. Even so he hopes. Getting Loki back on his feet and pushing the button for the top floor, he wishes deliriously that they will get a second to breathe before the next crisis hits. He remembers Loki laying on his chest with ice in his mouth, eyelashes brushing his cheeks and he wants more time. He wants more, period.

When the doors glide open, giggling laughter hits them both in the face and Tony gets his head in the game. Mixing bowls and greasy pans hail from the kitchen, accompanied by used dishes and a stack of leftover pancakes. The room smells savory with the lingering scents of bacon and maple syrup, and Tony peers over the high counter of the kitchen to see the sprouts clustered around Bruce in the sitting area, holding playing cards and demanding loudly that he 'go fish.'

Where the hell Bruce found a deck of paper playing cards in a Stark household, Tony would really like to know, but that's secondary to the flicker of gratitude that gets him right in the chest. No one has ever come to see the managerie without Tony paying them to do it. Today Bruce apparently broke the taboo of his own volition six hours after discovering their father naked in the team jacuzzi. And he made them breakfast.

Aware that he is staring, and that the group will notice them shortly, he holds Loki less tightly. Straightening his jacket, Tony checks Loki's posture and makes sure his legs are steady. Loki will want to appear strong in front of the others, and Tony just hopes he doesn't overdo it.

The first to notice is Hela, looking up from the fan of red Bicycle cards in front of her with a mutinous frown, and off of her expression everyone else swings. Jori yells a word in Asgardian that Tony now knows is daddy, and vaults the sofa, cards flying through the air. Normally Loki will take a knee and talk to the boys on level, but he doesn't manage it before Jori tackles him around the legs. Fen and he were in bed by the time Loki arrived. As far as they are concerned he's just been away on his usual business.

Hela is another story, and Tony exchanges a tense look with her over Bruce's shoulder. He thinks she's about to throw a tantrum, or the teenage version of one, but instead she slaps her cards on the hard floor and stomps to her room. Bruce watches her go and then gives Tony a disappointed look, like this is somehow his fault. What a bro.

Loki watches her too, and the small smile he caught from Jori dims. He looks down at the kid and pats his back with a hand that spans the boy's shoulders. They talk about something in Norse, back and forth and Loki smiles for real when Fen says something contrary and points at Loki's bruised face. Jori lifts his shirt to show off the scabs left over from he and Fen's tussle, and Loki starts dressing them both down.

Bruce looks fascinated, watching the exchange like he's trying to pick up the language. It is kind of awesome to finally share the experience with someone. Most of the time Tony feels like the lone security guard in his own personal franchise of Ripley's Believe It or Not, and seeing Bruce react to it reorients his entire life. He leaves Loki to catch up with the blueberries and eats a flapjack from the kitchen on his way to sit beside Bruce.

Someone swept up the broken glass, so the coffee table is just a topless metal frame. Tony puts his feet up on the wreckage and relaxes. Crashing from the adrenaline of the locker room confessional, all his usual aches and pains come back. The apple made him stronger, thickened his skin, and even made his wrinkles shallower, but it did fuck all to fix his mangled bones. The center of his chest is a lost cause, always will be. His right leg is on the mend from landing a forty foot fall on it during the fight with Killian, and his left arm has been fucked up since he took an anti-aircraft shell to the shoulder all the way back in 2010. The arm in particular is killing him after sleeping on his side and lugging Loki around all morning, so he gives it a squeeze for emphasis and flaps it in Bruce's general direction.

"Hey, you're a doctor. Do something about that." Tony says, because it's true and Bruce needs a distraction. He's ogling Loki like he expects Rock of Ages to fart butterflies, and that's gonna set off someone's temper if Tony doesn't intervene. Bruce looks at Tony's waving wrist and shifts his weight.

"Hey, you finally got one of my right." Bruce says, laying down his now useless hand of cards and cracking his knuckles.

"Well you've got like two dozen of 'em, it's like a monkey throwing darts." Tony snorts, then hisses when Bruce tests his range of motion. "Gonna hit one eventually."

"Take your jacket off." Bruce says, "And you should know my hourly rate scales with income."

"I'll buy you something pretty, don't get your panties in a bunch." Tony grumbles, tugging off the windbreaker and glancing back to the kitchen. Loki dismisses the boys, and they run out to play with their foam swords on the balcony. He and Loki share a look and his boyfriend runs a hand over his face, sighs with his whole body, and walks in the direction of Hela's room using the wall for balance. Godspeed.

Tony really milks the taking off the jacket process until Loki is out of earshot, then tosses it on the rug.

"Keep doing what your doing," Tony says quietly, "I'm a huge fan, but I actually need a different kind of doctor right now."

"Throw a dart, man." Bruce snarks, and Tony's arm lights up with pain as the doc checks out the massive tangle of scar tissue on his rotator cuff.

"I think Loki is suicidal." Tony admits in a low voice, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm.

"And?" Bruce says, catching Tony's expression and amending, "And... that is really surprising? And, er, bad. Really bad, I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Geez, you are a terrible therapist." Tony says.

"I mean, is it surprising though? He's a psycho, Tony. He threw you out a window."

Bruce presses on the knot and moves Tony's arm in a small circle. Hot damn, that doesn't hurt at all, in fact it feels awesome.

"And I threw him out the same one last month. We're even. Why can't any of you trust me on this?" Tony asks.

"You aren't the one we don't trust." Bruce angles, "He made me smash the helicarrier. And brainwashed Clint. Oh, and you know, that one time, remember that time he called Natasha a quim? Which means vagina, by the way, he called her a mewling vagina."

Tony pinches his nose and tries to contain all of the reasons that stuff is irrelevant. He knows Loki's actions don't undo themselves just because he cried that one time over what he did on Jotunheim, or because he loves his kids, or looks genuinely surprised when Tony tells him he's sexy. None of that is the team's business, and even if it was they would still have all the justification in the world to hate Loki.

It fucking sucks though, because Bruce is the kind of friend he hasn't had since college and Loki has become this wedge between them. It was easy to put aside in the beginning when Loki was fucking his brains out, and later when there started to be hour long make outs and shy hands wrapping around his while they walked to the car. But it's been four months and he finally has a chance to clear the air.

"He's got some repressed issues with vaginas." Tony eventually concedes.

"Yeah, I noticed that." Bruce says, maneuvering Tony so he can get at the back of his shoulder.

"So what do I do? About Loki's problem." Tony asks, eyes on the sofa, letting Bruce put pressure on his aches and move his arm this way and that.

"Well I know it's not what you wanna hear, but you can't really do anything." Bruce says, "You can't control what he thinks."

"Why is everyone calling me a control freak lately? Are you planning an intervention? Will there be cue cards? Tell me there are cue cards."

"You are literally doing it to this conversation, right now." Bruce points out, "You don't wanna listen to me so you're changing the subject. After you picked the subject and made me talk about it."

Tony pulls his arm back into his lap, glaring over his shoulder and ducking away when he sees Bruce's stubborn frown. Feeling called out, he wiggles his fingers and finds that the numbness is gone and it doesn't hurt to bend his elbow anymore. Hypothetically, just hypothetically, if Bruce is right about the control thing, then that kind of makes he and Loki's situation more comprehensible. It makes them compatible in ways Tony hasn't considered because he never thought his urge to keep everything in check was all that noteworthy. Apparently it is.

"So no pills then?" Tony asks, just to quell that final protest in the back of his mind, where he's still convinced some magic cure must exist.

"Well sure, but they aren't going to stop him from thinking." Bruce says, "It might help his mood, energy when he's low, but-"

Bruce takes off his glasses and folds them, taps them against his palm. Sitting with Bruce in his nutty professor button up and corduroy pants, soft eyed and draped in zen, it's hard to picture him putting a gun in his mouth. Tony never knew him during his dark hour, he just saw the news clips and got giddy like a kid watching Godzilla. Until now Tony never considered how long Bruce must have fought that bullet before he ate it. But he did, and suddenly Tony needs to know how.

"I can't lose him." he admits, clasping his hands in front of his mouth and staring at the spot on the carpet where Loki collapsed. Bruce puts his glasses in his shirt pocket and leans sideways into the couch.

"Then give him a reason to keep living."

The morning drags on. Bruce makes him eggs that are pure white and contain no salt whatsoever, and leaves some in the pan for Loki. That's about as close to an olive branch as any Avenger has come so far, and Tony notices. It's a nice gesture.

They muck about for a while discussing quantum fields and string theory while the sound of Loki and Hela arguing gets steadily louder down the hall. Tony doesn't really pay attention to most of it, he's just bantering and scouring the internet's most vague and cheesily illustrated guides on helping a suicidal spouse. They list such gems as monitor your loved one closely for changes in behavior and encourage them to seek professional help. Yeah, right.

Changes in behavior might as well be the name of Loki's debut rock album. Ninety percent of the time they are good for him too, seem to shake up his boredom and put the light back in his eyes. And as for professional help? Tony laughs bitterly imagining that conversation.

He's starting to think this is all a waste of time when he comes across a list of warning signs, and this article isn't on WebMD or anything like that. It's a blog. The forest green header claims it in the name of "Private_Pain," a service disabled veteran with a suicidal wife. Scrolling down displays articles, hundreds of articles over six years with titles ranging from Possible Remission to Another Attempt to Divorce: Should I Stay or Should I Go? The story of a stranger's life told one day at a time scares him. Reading down the calendar, it impresses on him that this is not a physical disease that you fight and beat and then forget. It makes a big tangle of fear crawl down into his psyche and shove the PTSD aside to make room on the bench for both of them.

The list of warning signs makes him want to puke. Loki's done nearly all of them. Setting affairs in person may reach out to estranged loved ones or attempt to establish secure financial situations for their family members. Further down, beside a picture of the guy's daughter petting their dog, Giving away prized possessions. Having decided to end their life, your loved one may gift you extravagant or beloved possessions because they believe they will no longer need them after they are gone.

Tony tries to stop, he can feel himself spiraling and he knows he needs to do something else but he can't, he just keeps going down the page. Indirect Farewells. Some individuals will feel compelled to make impulsive last minute visits to their closest contacts, although they will take care not to indicate that the goodbye is forever. Tony remembers Loki kissing his forehead, and the look of calm resolve in his eyes while he rebuffed every attempt to make him stay. He has to put the tablet down then, because he hears the case cracking under the strain of his clenched fists.

At some point while he devours the written account of the man's slowly disintegrating marriage, Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder and says he's heading to the lab. Tony remembers a time when that would have been an invitation, and he would have enthusiastically followed. They would have gotten lost in science for a sun cycle or two and laughed about cat memes over four in the morning coffee.

But he can't leave Loki. He has to watch him, and the kids, and read more, he has to read so much more. The tragedy on this blog awakens him, makes him suddenly appreciate how lucky he's been so far. At any time in their caustic courtship he could have said something careless that upset Loki. It could have been enough to push him over. Shit, it could have happened a dozen times and he wouldn't know if Loki had stopped himself and bounced back.

Bruce reads him a bit. Tony is good at concealing, but he's a little far off the edge to hide it all.

"It'll be ok." Bruce says, "Not everyone pulls the trigger. And people like us, we get more chances than most."

"Thanks, buddy." Tony says, and tries to believe him.

By the time Hela and Loki emerge he's read all the posts he can stand. It's a bittersweet ending. The veteran divorces his wife, eventually, after six years of caring for her. He's happy now, his kid isn't on probation anymore. They sleep better. The wife struggles, she makes attempts, but she hasn't succeeded yet.

There's still a death in the story, although every character survives. Their marriage dies, thoroughly choked out by years of stress and guilt, and Tony can see the corpse of it buried between the lines of the final posts, the ones where the man tries to move on. It's a mystery, the destroyed remnants of their relationship, an answer Tony desperately needs that he can't find here. Can't seem to find anywhere in the literally millions of articles on the search page. It's different for every person, they all say, no two cases are entirely alike.

He switches to the New York Times when Loki draws near, and frantically looks for an article that he would actually read. If Loki questions him at all it will be obvious that he's hiding something. Fortunately, he is just as shaken as Tony, and in no state to be suspicious or keen. The skin around his eyes is puffy and red and he looks miserable. Over his shoulder, Hela slumps into a stool at the bar looking much the same and nursing a glass of orange juice. Guess that didn't go so well.

Loki perches on the sofa beside him, stiff, chest rising and falling fast and shallow. When his own breathing matches the rhythm Tony realizes he's panicking. Trying to build something on this mess of a foundation can't be a good idea, it was probably an error in judgement from day one. Whatever conclusion his brain is hurtling towards, Loki stops it. He's sitting there coming down from a shouting match, digging fingers in his borrowed joggers and when he looks at Tony his face transforms. Clarity makes his eyes sharper and when he scans Tony up and down he feels cut open, like no one has looked at him properly ever in his life until just now.

"I have burdened you." Loki says, distraught, "You have done so much for me and all I do is weigh you down."

Your loved one may infer that you would be better off without them.

"No." Tony says forcefully, there's a long sentence that he means to follow that but it's all he can get out around trying to get enough air. Looking at Loki all he sees are signals, behaviors he has overlooked. Loki is exhausted, he's under stress, he's coming off a-

-a suicide attempt. Admit it. Fucking man up. It's not Voldemort, it's a diagnosed condition. Loki went to Asgard and attempted suicide. Because Tony made him unwelcome in their home, because he implied that Loki couldn't take care of himself.

"I made you do it, didn't I?" Tony croaks.

Loki scrambles closer and slides his hand in one of Tony's fists.

"It was me. It is my nature." Loki defers.

"But I pushed you."

"I came back." Loki says, squeezing Tony's hand. "I made it back in time."

Tony leans until he finds Loki's shoulder. Things are upside down, now. He's hurtling towards a panic attack and this time it's Loki surrounding him with his arms and pushing Tony's head onto his lap.

"I found your photographs." Loki whispers, surrounding him with curtains of dark hair. "They made me want to try."

Tony rubs his eyes, his cheeks. Everything is blurry but Loki's crisp features, which are overly defined by poor health and worry. His stomach is a torrent of guilt. He is supposed to be supporting Loki, should be making sure the kids don't maul each other, but he's on the couch hyperventilating over a blog.

"We shouldn't do this in front of them." he gasps around his hammering heart. It hurts, it's fear but it's physical too because his heart is made of synthetic fiber wrapped around ground meat and the ribs that quake on top of it are half titanium screws. He says, "They shouldn't have to deal with this."

"They already do." Loki replies, glancing furtively at Hela and back. "We have already shown them how to break. We will teach them how to fix as well."

"She told you about that?" Tony gasps. Loki's got him by the jaw. He's syncing their breathing and slowing them down. The air starts to feel like it contains oxygen.

"She wanted to know if 'artistic differences' is a sex act." Loki smirks, only half disapproving.

"Really hope you told her no."

"I told her to watch the film."

His bum leg is stinging at the awkward angle. He's slumped over in Loki's lap with his arms crossed and his legs slung off the edge of the sofa and twisted by gravity. He kicks off his sneakers and rolls so his knees are wedged in the cushions.

"I take it that was before the yelling."

Loki sighs. Doesn't answer.

Fenrir barks outside and Tony almost rolls back over on reflex to check, but then he hears Jori laugh loud and free and relaxes. Presses his nose into Loki's hip. It's nice. It's a good hip.

There was a time after the fucking like bonobos phase and before the kids appeared when it was just the two of them and Netflix. They should have done that a little longer. Tony misses it.

"What are we going to do?" Tony asks Loki's stomach.

"I don't know." Some other part of Loki answers.

"You always have a plan." Tony says.

"None of my plans accounted for me surviving this long." Loki murmurs. At least he's honest. That takes the sting out of it.

"Make some new ones then." Tony grunts, then plays it back in his head and adds, "And tell me about them this time."

The fingers on his chin brush up from his beard to his temple and trace the circle of his ear.

"I will." Loki says, and fuck it, Tony believes him. Never a good idea, but he's loopy and oxygen deprived and Loki looks genuine. After a moment he fumbles for the remote and turns on the flat screen. Breaking Bad resumes right where it was interrupted. Tony doesn't remember what was so compelling about it. With the universe at stake and Loki wasting away on another planet, he doesn't know how he could have possibly sat on his ass waiting around.

The hand in his hair holds him here now. Twenty four hours is about the maximum period of time Loki can slip away unnoticed, and they have already wasted so much of this week's allotment. He will go zero to sixty when Loki leaves again. For now this is where he belongs.

He calls in food when it gets dark. Loki wants tikka masala so they get a big spread of creamy tomato goodness, four cups of rice, and a huge stack of naan. It's a good choice. The boys are more receptive to it when he shows them there's no cooked meat in the vegetarian stuff, and they decide it's fun to dip the naan in different colors. After Bruce's pancakes there seems to be a revolution at hand. Bread is now on the approved food list, as well as sugar and, god help him, quinoa. One visit from Mean Green and now he's raising the next generation of CalTech hipsters.

Something goopy and embarrassing infects him and Loki over the course of the day. They can't stop touching each other, not for any longer than it takes to get to the bathroom or refill their drinks, and nothing PG-13 happens. Nothing so much as a pinched butt or a heated look. They are like teenagers on a first date, just mooning at each other and seeing how much they can get away with. Loki feeds him this time. Tempts him with a bite from his masala and misses his mouth on purpose. Smears orange sauce up his nose and all over his beard and laughs until he's out of air. The boys quickly imitate him and soon the table is a war zone and Tony has to call in the cleaner bot.

Loki bathes Jori for the first time in six weeks and gives the performance of a lifetime when they tuck the boys in. The dark room glows with his golden illusions. His rich voice sounds clear and silky as he narrates the tale of young Sigurd, a prince who fells an ancient dragon by repairing his father's broken sword.

Halfway through Hela creeps in, sheepish from the fight this morning but drawn in by the spectacle. She sits cross legged at the foot of Fen's bed and Tony melts a little when the swooping magic lights up her and Fen's faces as Loki sends the dragon flying just over their heads. There's a bit about a horse that's kind of odd. Something about how the boy chooses his horse well, for she is descended from Fen and Jori's brother, who is also apparently Odin's horse. Huh. Tony files that away under curious but none of his business .

The fable is a bit of an epic, as Norse stories tend to be, so by the time the boy returns home only Hela and Tony are still awake. To his surprise, Hela extends a hand and pulls Loki up off the floor before he can get to him. She says something fast and complicated sounding in Asgardian and hugs him right there with Tony watching.

"You are forgiven." Loki says quietly, and puts his hand on the back of her head. "I will remember your words."

Hela nods and pulls away, remembers Tony is there and blushes. Makes a run for it. Tony manages to get a hand on her wrist, and she looks back, wide eyed.

"Sleep well, kiddo." he says and hopes she gets what he really means. Hela nods, sniffs, and slips away.

It's a good day. Not because something big happens, but because nothing happens. It is the kind of day he remembers in between battles when he's beaten and sore and trapped in a quinjet with too many bodies and wondering why the fuck he's doing this.

He and Loki slide into bed, and Tony lays there for a long time watching Loki read over the phone he's pretending to work on. It's the first normal day they've had in such a long, long time. It makes his chest hurt in the most incredible way, in a way that doesn't really hurt at all.

"Does it please you to watch me read?" Loki purrs, not taking his eyes off the book.

"I could watch you do anything." Tony says, earnestly. Loki flips a page. He's poised, making a show of smoothing down the paper with a perfectly elegant caress. He reaches to the stack of gold bars that he fashioned into a bedside table while Tony was in the shower, and picks up his glass of water. Sips it slowly and swallows.

"Well if I have your attention anyway, might I ask your opinion?" Loki says, and sets down the glass with a metallic clink. Tony nods and turns off the phone display, since the jig is up anyway.

"Would it disappoint you if my reward is not-" Loki stutters, purses his lips until he gets his thoughts organized, "if it is not a sexual act?"

Tony blinks a bit dumbly at that. Not because he's put off or anything. Ok, maybe that was what he had in mind, but his utter fixation on shagging Loki's brains out is well documented, and not really the point. In fact, once the idea registers properly he gets kind of giddy. Loki is taking this choosing a reward thing seriously, giving it thought.

"Well I did say you could pick anything." he says, shrugging. The whole bed is probably shaking with the way his heart is jumping, but he plays it cool on the off chance that his composure holds.

"I am conflicted." Loki trails off, contemplatively, "This morning I thought only of your more indecent talents."

"So what stopped you picking one?" Tony winks, tapping his pointer finger on his chin playfully. Loki bites his lip. Oh, fuck yeah, he's thinking about it. Tony's a mad genius at implanting dirty thoughts. So close…

"This property of mine," Loki answers, "I wish to see it. Perhaps bring the children and drive in one of your fast cars."

...and yet so far. Even so, the image of Loki in the passenger seat of a convertible, laughing wildly with his hair dancing in the wind while Tony floors it. Yeah, that sounds awesome. The kids love the supercars. Oh, he can call up Happy and they can race once they get out of city traffic, give the bits a taste of real excitement.

"I think that's an excellent reward." Tony says, sitting up on the headboard and shooting a text to Happy. He lobs the phone at the bedside table and gets up on his knees, leans over to capture Loki's mouth and let him know just how good the idea is.

"Tomorrow, then." Loki breathes into the kiss, flattered and pleasantly lightheaded.

"I could be wrong," Tony says, laying a hand on Loki's hip, "But I think that leaves our schedule for tonight pretty open."

"You spoil me, Stark." Loki says, running his hands up Tony's chest and lacing them behind his neck. He lays himself on top of the satin comforter and pulls Tony down over him.

"Not yet, I haven't." Tony says, sliding his hand under Loki's waistband.

"No time like the present." Loki hums, and urges Tony to have his way.


	8. Chapter 8

The countryside glows yellow in the midmorning as they rocket down the rural highways at irresponsible speeds. Everything feels like it's thrumming with energy compared to the stagnant air in the penthouse, from the roaring engines to the dust thrown up by the tires. It's infectious and vibrant, and when he looks at Loki it makes him seem to glow around the edges.

They're practically flying over the blur of tall grass and wire fences, he and Loki in the Porsche with the top down and the brat pack hanging out the windows of the Mercedes in the next lane. Tony's tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the gentle, dulcet tones of Black Sabbath blasting at full volume and Loki is half standing in the passenger's seat trying to hit her children with ice daggers at ninety-five miles per hour. Another great day in the asylum.

If he and Loki were chaste high school sweethearts yesterday then his smooth, searing handjob must have been graduation. Because today his mind is completely one track and it's a problem. Loki passed the fuck out as soon as he came last night and left Tony to take care of himself with his old friend Mr. Right, so he's maybe a little high strung. Every sarcastic word and sideways glance makes him want to tackle Loki in the backseat. Or vice versa. Or, hell, they could crash and fuck in the wreckage. He's not picky.

So far he's kept himself in check, but only because he's never been capable of receiving road head without collateral damage. Still, Loki needs to stop being so appealing. Soon they'll arrive at their destination and he really needs to not pitch a tent when he gives the grand tour.

The day is about as liberating and high octane as he imagined, but with the notable improvement of Loki in her female form, gift wrapped in faux leather tights with one of Tony's band shirts hung off her shoulder like a grunge groupie and a studded leather jacket he's never seen before. Her hair is glorious and untamed, tied back in a birds nest that once resembled a ponytail with three lines of braids above her ears. Yeah, she kept them. Conjured a fist full of little black bands and tied them up herself. Tony thinks he must be in a coma, dreaming.

Just when he thinks the excursion can't get more reckless, Hela appears out of nowhere in the backseat and squirts a plastic water bottle at Loki. Tony swerves a bit, surprised, but Happy's a good wingman and avoids him. Loki manages to catch the water in mid-air, freezes it in a rippled wave and throws it back, which is fucking metal. Hela deflects it before Tony has time to worry and melts it back to liquid, splattering it on the upholstery with a cackling laugh. They go back and forth, basically having a slap fight, except that they're Jotun so it involves a lot more ice and mortal peril than it should. It's fun, kind of hot on Loki's part, up until a stray dagger misses his ear by a millimeter and buries itself in the windshield, cracking it from one side to the other.

"Ok, that's it." Tony crows over the road noise, throwing off his sunglasses, "Jarvis, take the wheel."

Loki and Hela form a truce in the time it takes Tony to get out of the bucket seat, and when he stands up on the center console they've already teleported to the top of the Mercedes.

"You cannot hope to challenge us!" Loki boasts, clothes flapping around her figure while she strikes a very nice power stance. Again, with the unnecessary sexiness.

"My name is Tony Stark, you killed my car, prepare to die!" Tony calls back. Kicking down the center section of the back seat, he shoves his feet into the boot casings of the Mark 43 hidden underneath and signals for Jarvis to suit him up. Metal crawls up his body one segment at a time, but he leaves the face plate off. He wants to look Loki in the eye when he pins her.

"It had it coming!" Hela retorts, and with a glance to her father, the two of them summon blades from thin air in unison, spinning them around matching sets of deft fingers. He never should have let her watch Chicago.

Tony kicks things off with a quick repulsor blast, low power of course, but it goes wild because he has to dodge about a hundred throwing daggers. Those do not look low powered.

"Hey, watch it, you could poke someone's eye out." he jokes, darting around in circles above the two of them and narrowly avoiding a spray of ice from Loki.

"I rather thought that was the point, darling." Loki snarks, and throws a blade in Tony's flight path. It's well calculated, he has to adjust at the last minute, which means the only way is up. When he fires the boosters, Loki phases into his new trajectory, her foot already extended in a strong downward kick that lands square on his back. Tony corkscrews out of control and just manages to catch himself before he hits the ground. Loki has the nerve to wink at him before blinking back onto the car, where she bends in a graceful bow as it carries her away.

Damn, owned. He only takes a few seconds to catch up, but when he gets there Hela is happily gunning the Porsche while Loki paces on top of the Mercedes, waiting for him.

"For a second I thought you were gonna knock out my teeth." Tony calls.

"You would not be much use to me without your face." Loki shouts back, her smile free and wolfish. Minx. Tony snags her around the waist and lifts off, takes them both for a joy ride that ends with them breathless and windblown at the end of a gravel drive. Loki stumbles when her feet touch down, and they end up holding each other.

"Too much?" Tony asks, and she pushes him back an inch, gets her balance.

"No, it is good. Like a sore muscle. Magic needs to be used to grow stronger." Loki says.

Tony steps out of the suit. It's almost eerily quiet after hours of whipping wind, and he takes her hand, turns to look at the expansive plot of undeveloped land.

"Ta-da." he chants. Loki smirks, shoves her hair over her shoulder and pulls the jacket tighter around her. It's chilly this far north even in the middle of summer, and she doesn't get the Jotun warmth in her other shapes. He lays an arm over her shoulders and they stroll a bit. The drive turns from gravel to brownstone pavers after a hundred yards or so, and they pass a weathered wooden mailbox with rusted copper numbers screwed into the side.

The existing house is a ruin. A slumped rectangle of rotten, horizontal siding with broken window panes as dry and white as sun-bleached bones. The roof is caved in over the porch, which is itself a termite eaten scrap heap with flecks of red and white paint caught in the grains of the old wood.

"You spoil me, Stark." Loki drawls.

"Yup, I'm the best." Tony says, "But, I mean, the idea was to knock it down and start fresh."

Loki turns a slow circle, taking in the property. Its open, already leveled for development, but grown over as though the previous owner changed their mind. To the east, sunk into the foot of a forested hill, there is a small pond with a stone bench and a wrought iron trellis. It's charming, remote. Also massive. He bought it with half a mind to build a vacation home, but then Loki convinced him to rebuild Malibu. He barely had the time to live in two houses, let alone three. After that he thought maybe an Avengers base would be good, would give them bigger training spaces with lots of room to grow. Honestly that option is still on the docket, but he can find somewhere else. This is Loki's now and he doesn't regret his decision.

"It is magnificent." she declares. "A worthy gift."

"Uh, sale, sweetheart." Tony quips, poking her in the ribs, "You paid for it. Handsomely."

"A compensated gift, then." Loki says, burrowing under his arm and looking up through unfairly long lashes.

"Yeah, okay." Tony smirks. Kisses her. The green all around is the color of her magic and her eyes. Waves of black hair and the overgrown wilderness make her look like a forest spirit from a fairy tale, all dark promise and danger. _Watch for changes in behavior._ Pft. Right. Loki used to skulk around, now she's skipping over moving cars and kicking his ass. That's not a warning sign, it's progress.

Even so, today is a first of sorts. For all the nights they've spent in sin, female Loki has never been outside. He doesn't know why. It would be less conspicuous. For a while he thought it was a taboo. Then a few weeks later a crew of window washers came to squeegee the living room and she spent three hours on the couch in her lacy underwear watching them work and eating poptarts. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it does. Ultimately Bruce is right, it's not his call. There are things about Loki that he doesn't need to understand to appreciate, and information he needs to earn before he learns it. Her presence here is significant, and that's all he needs to know.

There is the impulse to treat her like a lady. Flowers, candy, the usual crap. But at the same time she's Loki, who likes to be poked and pushed around a bit. Teased, as long as she knows she isn't the punch line. But then, isn't that the point of changing, to be something different? Ugh, this is why thinking is a liability in their relationship. It's killed lesser men than Tony.

He settles for taking her apart one tender kiss at a time. Enough heat and teeth that she doesn't feel coddled, but mostly just soft and plying, welcoming her to the land of the living. Loki starts getting really into it, starts to turn and put her legs between his and-

"Ew! They're kissing!" a high pitched voice yells behind Tony. God damn it all.

"Gross!" the other high pitched voice answers. They break apart.

A feral kind of grin splits Loki's face and she slinks away. There's a lot of hip involved. She puts her hand on Jori's head and explains to the kids that this is their land, that they can shift if they want and nobody will hassle them. It's all very warm and fuzzy if he puts his deep frustration on the back burner. In a movie it would be pink and gold and soft focus with a swelling orchestra worthy of the end of a Star Wars movie. Deep down he's maybe a little fluttery too, even if he mimes gagging noises at Happy over Loki's shoulder.

She sends the herd of godlings off with a stern order to explore the entire plot and report back, and it's like an episode of Amazing Race. The little biters grow three sizes and scatter. Not just the boys, either. He about shits himself when Hela hops on top of a barbed wire fence and turns into a hook-beaked falcon the size of a Saint Bernard. Huh, at least that explains the bone wind chime hanging over her desk. Happy doesn't do nature, so he opts to stay in the air conditioning while Tony and Loki hike over to the pond.

It's chilly, and he swears there is a bug somewhere within a mile radius. That is categorically unacceptable for Tony, for any Stark really. They are titans of industry, not nature people. His ankles itch under his socks and the fact that it could be grass, or thousands of ants, or his mind playing tricks on him makes him twitchy. As soon as he starts inventing excuses to bail and join Happy in the Mercedes, Loki bends over to rip the vines off the stone bench and he decides actually nature isn't so bad.

Damn but those leggings should be illegal. They're so tight. And shiny. And now Loki's maybe milking it a bit, because there's no legitimate reason she needs to bend all the way over the fucking bench. He adjusts himself in his slacks as minutely as possible, which is not very subtle at all in the middle of a field. Loki spins and perches on the bench, smugly leaning back on her arms so her shoulders hunch and push her breasts together. She scans Tony up and down and crosses her legs at the ankle of her rockabilly boots.

"Won't you join me, darling?" she asks in a sex voice that makes Tony groan. This is fucking manslaughter. He has a heart condition, she can't do this to him.

"You should say that at home sometime, see what happens." Tony smirks, enjoying the view.

"I would very much like to find out now." Loki says, and, oh sweet jesus, squeezes her legs together and rolls her hips. Keeps her eyes on his the whole time. He scraps his earlier statement, she's the one who should be illegal.

"The kids are literally right there." Tony says, putting a hand over his eyes because he knows he's going red and that is so not kosher. Exhibitionism isn't a problem, but he's pretty sure what Loki is working up to is grounds for a call to child protective services.

Out of nowhere, Loki pounces on him, knocks them both to the ground and gets her hands in Tony's, pulls them over his head and laces their fingers.

"What if I can afford us some privacy?" she says, biting his ear and turning his conscience to lava. She draws a circle on the back of Tony's hand with a finger and Tony watches two figures materialize, clones of he and Loki sitting together and chatting amiably on the bench. Wow, he can think of some really very kinky applications for that.

Now that she has his attention, Loki sits up and gathers some energy. At least that's what it looks like. Figuring out how magic works is high on the agenda, right under defending Earth, but for reasons currently perched on his dick he hasn't gotten to it yet. Thor insisted once that it is just really advanced science, but Tony is skeptical. His suit might look pretty fucking magical these days, but it's all thanks to dubious experiments with implants. What Loki does is something else, and nothing she's ever said indicates that she underwent any kind of procedures to get it.

A sort of dome appears around them, although the shape is irregular, and out of it shoot blades of grass a couple hundred at a time. It's solid looking, and very trippy to look at from the inside. An illusion, like the clones.

Wow, Loki must really want it. She's building an illusory sex hideout because she doesn't want to wait for it, and ain't that an ego boost. Bit of a boner boost too, if the warmth pooling in his gut is anything to go by. Yeah, ok, they're doing the nasty. He's officially convinced.

"How do you want it?" he asks, rolls his hips so she can feel him. Loki arches, presses down, but sighs at his words. Frowns down at him like he ruined the moment. Closing her eyes, she rubs into the growing bulge in his pants and grips his hands harder.

"Lokes-" Tony says.

"Y-Your voice." she interrupts a little angry, a little resigned, "In the lab."

Oh, interesting.

"You, want me to, uh-" Tony says, searching for the right words. He's pretty sure "take you down" will come off wrong. Seems unlikely that Loki's encountered a dictionary of kink slang unless her internet history has become way more interesting than the last time Tony checked. He clears his throat. "You want me to make you float?"

Her yes is more of a moan than a word. It makes his breath hitch and his hips rock. She's got him fucking trained. All it takes is a certain look or a sweet little moan and he's ready. Sucks though, because he doesn't think it's such a great idea to unhinge Loki a couple hours before she jumps in the nearest portal to Asgard. Talking he can do though, he's got a mind like a landfill if dirty talk is what she wants. Mmm, and he hasn't had the privilege of her female body in ages.

"I love you like this." he starts, and Loki bucks into him, breathes hard through her mouth, " You look soft, but I know you're not. I know how you like to take it deep and have me cover your mouth so the whole tower doesn't hear you."

"Yes, Tony." Loki pants, and her pupils go so big her eyes are almost black. She runs her nails down his arms, his chest. Rakes up her shirt and slides those narrow fingers under her stretchy leggings. No imagination is required, those pants are just so tight and sleek that he can see every eager little stroke she treats herself to. It's a mind bender, because he's not sure if he wants the pants off or on. He wants to see her, but the barrier also drives his imagination wild, makes him that much more desperate.

When she had his arms pinned it felt a little restrictive, but now she's giving him a show and he kind of wants to leave his hands up. Wants to make a game of driving her wild without even touching her.

"You remember that time in the shower? You looked so fucking gorgeous from between your legs." Tony says in his lowest voice, rough from the arousal pulsing in time with his heart, his dick, and all the way to his toes. "I could have stayed there for days, just eating you out and making you come on my face. Over and over."

Loki moans, high and breathy and so, so sexy. No pornographer in the known universe could do that sound justice. His best laid plans fall apart around there because he can't hold back anymore. To err is human, and sweet hell does he want to err. He wants to err so hard. He runs his hands up her thighs and digs his fingers in her perfect ass, uses the leverage to rub up into her through both of their pants.

"I wanted you to grab my hair and make me drink you down." Tony groans, palming himself because he's about to bust an inseam.

Loki's hand is a blur. She's writhing and humping like a piston, but he knows he can do better. He wants to touch her through her own hand, wants to take that control she's offering him and play with it.

"Slide your fingers down there, get them wet for me." Tony says, and Loki does. She's so wet he can hear her slip in. "Yeah, fuck yeah, now drag them back up. Rub your clit. Nice and slow, I want you to feel it."

"Tony." Loki pants. Her body is shuddering and she's doing perfect, doing it just how he would.

"Good, so good for me." Tony says. He runs a hand under her shirt and cups one of her breasts, ghosts his thumb around the tip to see her tremble.

There's nothing wrong with what they normally do, but Tony Stark loves women. He loves soft skin and dick-sucking lips. He loves the way they look delicate but can take so much, how they are secretly indestructible. Apparently he loves them enough that the motherfucking Mind Stone told Loki all he needed to have Tony enthralled was an attractive female body. And you know what, it's true. Guilty as charged. It's the person inside that made him stay though, this hungry, insatiable beast that doesn't understand how incredible they are. Loki is fucking inconceivable in whatever shape or gender they choose to be.

She's getting unruly now, whining more and more the longer Tony holds her reins. She thinks she likes it fast, always rubs savagely at herself like she's going to burst if she doesn't come in the next ten seconds. Tony knows better. Nothing makes her cry out like a torturous ascent, a drawn out peak of quivering and shaking and eventually begging. Never once did he imagine how hot it would be to make her do it to herself.

"I need it, I need it, oh Norns, need more." Loki pleads, her body lurching and her hand tremorring with the effort of holding steady, rubbing wet and slow and not enough.

"Wait for it, don't rush." Tony scolds, kneading her breasts and nipples with barely-there touches.

"I can't, I can't, let me come, let me come." Loki cries, sounding like she's on the verge of a breakdown, and Tony takes pity on her. Gives her the push she needs.

"Then come, beautiful." he says, and gives her nipple a sadistic little twist, a spark of pain to amplify the pleasure, and Loki comes. It seems to last forever, her body doubled over and moaning into his chest. Her fingers never stop, they keep reaching and pressing and trying to make it last. Tony slides his hand in and pushes hers aside. She's done so well, she deserves more. In this form she doesn't like him being on top of her, so instead of rolling all the way he guides her to the bed of grass by his side. Loki is absolutely dripping, hot and still twitching with aftershocks, so it only takes a second to make up his mind and slick up his fingers.

He knows every inch of this body from the single dark freckle on her right hip to the small window of time just after she comes when all it takes are a few deep, sinful strokes to make her come all over again. His fingers spread her open and slide right to her spot, play it like an old friend while he strokes her clit with his thumb and she peaks again, hard and too soon.

He gets an up close view of her face as she takes the plunge this time and she's incredible, gripping bruises into his hips and mouthing quiet obscenities. Loki always loses her words after the first orgasm, seems to enter an almost transcendental place where there's just desperate whines and the hunger for more. Tony already wants to do it again, wants to watch her devour orgasms until she's spent and numb and upset that she can't keep going.

Lips crash over his and he welcomes her, lets her plunge in and rake her teeth over his tongue while he coaxes her body into another rush of arousal, rubs her and fucks her with the precision only fingers can achieve. He loses track after a bit, doesn't really care to quantify the experience. That's the beauty of Loki not having a dick sometimes. Times like this they get to enjoy a kind of intimacy that wanders and improvises rather than both of them racing toward a biological finish line.

Taking his time, he follows her up and down the sine wave of her arousal until his arm starts seizing up and Loki's moans of _I can't_ start to mean that she can't come again not that she can't come without more sensation. He drags her forcefully through one more after that just because _yes she fucking can_ and it turns her into a beautiful, shattered thing. Makes her come harder than he's seen in a good long while.

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you" Loki chants reverently, eyes closed and gasping, reaching for Tony's fly. Not that it is anyone's business, but Loki is very good at gratitude. Probably no one knows because no one ever bothered to earn it. But she is. Truthfully he could blow any second, there's no telling. Loki brings him to the edge just by existing, let alone after a day of being inhumanly enticing.

Her lips on his brow catch him off guard. Kisses travel along his cheeks, his nose, so simple and chaste even as Loki's hand does evil, filthy things to his cock. Pressure surrounds his shaft and grazes the rest of the way up, light and teasing until it gets to the elastic waistband and pulls it down to free him. The cold air takes the edge off, and he's grateful for it even as he shivers and hisses.

Her hand is a curious combination of dry and slick that he knows is Loki's magic lube, and the thought makes him chuckle. So sue him, it will always be hilarious that there is a spell for that. She knows what's so funny, because he laughs every damn time. Usually she does her cute derisive sneer when he laughs, but today he knows he did her right because she giggles along with him.

Slotting her lips into his, she plays along his teeth and the top of his mouth and withdraws to smile against his beard while the tingles travel down his back. He never properly appreciated making out until Loki. Kissing one night stands gives people the wrong idea, and his first few attempts in college were just slobbery and awkward and uncomfortably close. Then this magnificent person pressed their lips to his and erased everything that came before. One day at a time she's teaching him a language of lips and tongues from penetrating to hesitant to inviting. Tony could eat someone out on stage at the Oscars without so much as a blush, but kisses are sacred. Never in his life has anyone else made him feel the way Loki does with nothing but a brush of lips.

She treats him to a grateful, giving sort of kiss, pressing in and lighting up his nerves with the buzzing, fluttering tingles that he thought he'd outgrown decades ago. All the while pumping him like a machine. Oh, he won't last long. No way.

Between one moan and the following inhale he comes. It's subdued, quietly satisfying. One of those that starts in his toes and cascades upward, a release of all the tension caught in his head from the last two days. Loki kisses him through it, and he returns to reality like the last pin of a lock clicking into place.

They're here, together, miles from civilization and sharing late summer air. They're okay. Nothing is going to be easy from here on out. They have too much to lose. But they're okay.

Tony spends the afterglow sucking dark hickies in Loki's neck and feeling up everything he can reach. She takes it patiently, squirms and sighs in her lovely, rich voice and basks in the attention.

"Can you keep these when you change to Odin?" Tony asks, nuzzling her neck. He's sleepy now, but his mind feels re-energized, full of inspiration. Loki arranges her hair with a hand while she thinks. It's cute. Natural and unaffected.

"Well I suppose no one will see me without my robes." Loki says.

"You should. Keep 'em I mean. Then when you have to look at that bastard in the mirror you'll see the real you. See what I did to you." Tony babbles, gazing adoringly at her. She's incredible.

Loki sniffs, rubs at her eyes like she's got allergies.

"I would like that." she says. "I hate being him."

Tony tries to touch her, but she sits up. Gives him a quelling look and cleans them both up. With magic, this time.

"There is nothing for it." she says, and carefully tucks Tony back in his pants. Zips his fly and smooths out his shirt.

"Thank you, darling. This has been a lovely day."

 _This letter is false._

The drive back isn't nearly as eventful. After a few hours of rolling around in the grass and terrorizing the wildlife, the kids tumble back to the pond cranky and covered in mud. Even Hela let loose, if the leaves in her hair are anything to go by. It's a good thing. There's only so many times he can run them around an indoor track before they start to feel like hamsters.

He and Loki share some premade sandwiches and talk, which turns into sharing, which very quickly becomes planning. Tony really intended to keep the trip stress free, but they don't have much time before Loki has to go and eventually they both get weary of dancing around the subject.

Some things get decided. First, Loki needs to find the scepter. After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. it could be literally anywhere, including the Titan's hand, and that's a serious problem. Tony needs a new suit, maybe a small fleet of them. There's no telling how many he might go through fighting a guy that can throw Loki around like a baseball. The Aether will stay in the Tower because Loki keeps the Space Stone with her on Asgard, and they think it's a bad idea to have two in the same place. It's just business, but it's terrifying business, and it wrings him out. Really takes the shine off the whole day.

He doubts he'll sleep for at least five days. There is too much to do. Suits to make, a shield to build around the world, and of course he's not actually given up on the Aether. That's the sticking point that drew a line down the middle of the car. It's an unknown quantity, one of equal power to the other two stones, and Tony needs to understand it. But Loki won't budge. Loki only sees it as a parasitic time bomb. Tony can't open the cube without Loki's magic, so for now they are at an impasse.

Scenarios spin while the tires turn on the concrete. He can't fathom going behind Loki's back, but neither is he confident that he can change Loki's mind. Something has to give because fighting this threat with a weapon left in the locker makes no sense. They might as well come at him with Super Soakers.

His eyes wander off the road for a second to check on Loki. She's staring blankly out the window, the scenery reflected in the dark parts of her eyes. It's a neutral expression that Tony has come to associate with obfuscated fear. Despite her rapidly improving vitality, Tony would rather get a root canal than let Loki go back to Asgard. Every mile they drive brings them closer to goodbye and she visibly wilts in time with the passing of the mile markers. He drives with a hand in his beard, and his fingers maybe dig in too hard but he trusts his goatee to hide the pink splotches.

He sighs, shifts his weight. Loki's eyes dart over like he might explode, and he catches her look of trepidation. There's no reason for her to be afraid of him. He's not some brute about to slap her around just because he's upset, but he sees her face and he knows that's what her subconscious expects. She sees him catalog her reaction and looks away. Sinks further into the seat. Nobody talks, because it would go badly.

Happy leads the way into the garage, and as soon as Tony shifts into park Loki is out the door like a racehorse. His stomach drops. No part of him can consciously explain why. It's instinct, raw intuition. He just knows this is a warning sign. The car chirps in between his rapid footsteps, over yellow lines and around concrete pillars while he tries to keep up without running. Loki is in a fugue, walking past the Mercedes without a glance while the group piles out and Happy gathers their scattered toys and devices.

Six years of paperless trajectory calculation inform him that Loki is walking directly into a cinderblock wall. Fuck it. He runs. No hesitation, that much hasn't changed since the beginning. With Loki you commit or you regret. His leg twinges but he gets a hand around her elbow and he doesn't budge.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?" he hears himself hiss. He feels distant, like he's outside his body watching it happen.

"We both know I must leave tonight." Loki snaps, fighting Tony's hold, "I am getting it over with."

"You can wait five minutes." Tony says, and the chatter behind them dies down. Shit, the kids are watching. Loki had to make a scene didn't she? He throws his arm around her shoulders and leans in like they're having an adult moment. Tries to exude casual inappropriateness. Let them think he's a perv, let them think whatever they want, it's better than letting them see their father walk out on them. Again.

Loki flinches at his touch, and his heart might shatter. He keeps going, angles them to the private elevator. His heart has broken a million times before, it's fine. He can build a new one.

"Happy, can you take everyone up the public elevator?" Tony says, forcing cheerfulness, looking over his shoulder and giving the man the salacious sort of look he hasn't pulled since he toured the Playboy mansion in his twenties.

"I can't, Tony." Loki shudders, hiding her face, and god it's so much worse in her female form. Her face is more open, her bones smaller and hunched under his arm.

"You will say goodbye to them." Tony says, "That's not negotiable."

"I can't bear it." Loki shivers, hugs herself. "Please, Tony."

Tony hammers the call button repeatedly and glares up at the red numbers dropping from fifty nine like they killed his parents. There's no telling what will come out of his mouth when the doors close, but he's chomping at the bit, he's ready to go. He knows Loki has her reasons but this is about more than her. Not once in his entire life has he forgotten the nights his father walked out.

"If you aren't comfortable being manhandled as a woman, you should change." Tony warns, moving his hand to the back of Loki's neck. It rises up as Loki gets taller, the soft throat becoming wiry muscle and square shoulders. The doors slide open and he shoves Loki inside. Steps in after him. The door slides shut and he stares at Loki's hunched back.

Tony must be psychologically disturbed. This is so far beyond fucked up, but he knows it will work. Sometimes you test, the rest of the time you fly the fucking prototype. With a hand on either side of Loki's neck he pushes him to sit on the ground. Kicks his feet out in front when he goes to kneel. None of that. Not in his house.

"Cross your legs." he instructs, and drops to sit in front of him. Loki is counting floor tiles so Tony cuffs him on the ear and angles his head where he wants it. There he is, Tony's frustrating, broken, beautiful creature.

"You and I both know you can leave this elevator with a blink." Tony says, unflinching. "I will be very upset if you do. If you need to leave you say Mjolnir. Understand?"

In the back of Tony's mind he's terrified Loki will say it. He's flying by his pants, he has no other plan, but there are rules for a reason. Loki has an out. Tony waits, pants like he's run a mile.

"I understand." Loki says.

"Jarvis stop the elevator. And don't record this." Tony says. Loki flinches. The elevator stutters and bounces with the sudden press of gravity. The lights dim, not entirely necessary but people only believe the cameras are really off if something visibly changes so he coded it that way. He makes Loki wait for a minute. He's been in the submissive side of this before. Silence is powerful.

"Please, Tony." Loki whispers. Tony doesn't think he's ever heard Loki say that word before tonight. Not once. Not in real life and not in between the sheets, despite all the times he's driven him to incoherent begging. Princes don't say please.

"My father left the first time when I was five. Put his wallet on the table in the middle of a fight and walked out." Tony starts, fighting to keep his eyes locked with Loki. He's about to ask Loki to cross a line. He owes him this. "He wasn't a bad man yet. And my mom wasn't a victim. They pushed each other. They made each other bad people."

Loki is transfixed. He is frozen under Tony's hard grip on the hair at his temple, barely blinking. Listening.

"The next time, I was eight. He hopped on a plane to look for Captain America. I went to his workshop and built my first bomb. He left the unfinished plans on his desk and I thought he'd be proud and want to stay around more."

"The next time it was my fault. I was twelve. Bored. Mad at him. I thought maybe he'd spend time with me if I got drunk. He and his friends did it all the time. He caught me in his study shit faced and shut the door. Never mentioned it."

Loki's lip is quivering, full of half-formed sentences he can't seem to let loose. He looks horrified, and confused. Tony gets him by the scruff and pulls hard, makes him grunt and gasp.

"That's what happens when you don't say goodbye, Loki." Tony says. "Kids blame themselves."

He expects to be upset by the story, but he just feels vacant. Nothing exists outside of Loki's glassy eyes and his gaping mouth.

"What do you want me to do?" Loki asks, and his hands come up around Tony's arms and grip him where Tony's pulling his head back. He doesn't try to stop him, he just holds on. Good, that's where Tony needs him. As soon as he sees the silent apology he knows they are okay.

"We will get to that. First, tell me why you ran." Tony lets go of Loki's hair. His partner doesn't move, he's stiff as stone, so Tony grabs his hands. He kneads them one knuckle at a time, down the line.

"I can't bear it." Loki says. Oh fuck, he's crying. Hyperventilating and crying like there's a dam breaking behind his eyes. "It will hurt too much."

"You can. You are stronger than this." Tony says.

"I'm not, Tony, I'm not." Loki shouts. It's primal. His pain is like a force of nature. Tony pulls him into his chest, but Loki doesn't take it. Strong arms thrash within his hold and Loki sobs, pounds his hands on Tony's chest and scrapes up his arms. A month ago it would have put him in the hospital, now it just burns his soul.

"You are." Tony growls, clinging. They end up on the floor, Loki struggling and Tony pinning him down. "Have I ever asked you to do more than you're capable of?"

There's only one answer. There literally is only one answer, because Tony hasn't. Never. Loki goes limp and the cramped space echoes their discordant breathing, reverberates Loki's broken sobs.

"No." he breathes. Tony shoves his face into the floor and lets him pour his fears into the ground.

"You'll do this because I know you can." Tony insists. "You don't need to think about anything, okay, for the next ten minutes your body is mine. All you have to do is follow my instructions. Understand?"

Loki nods, sucking in air through his nose, trying to keep it from dripping.

"Ok, first I'm going to clean you up, and you're going to put yourself in Asgardian clothes." Tony says, waiting for him to nod.

"Then we're gonna go to the penthouse and you will hug your children. You'll say that you don't want to go and tell them you'll be back on Friday. When you're done, we'll put you back together. Repeat that back to me so I know you understand." Tony says.

Loki does, almost word for word. Tony makes him do it again, because saying it calms Loki down. There's a certain amount of clarity to him now, a hint of post-adrenaline sleepiness that comes across as collected.

"Good, Loki." Tony says, and pulls Loki into an embrace. Loki squeezes him with all his limbs like a lonely octopus and they catch their breath. He rubs Loki's back until his eyes are dry. Tony has Loki blow his nose on his shirt because apparently he has fallen that far. He feels a kinship with the bleary eyed mothers that sit around Central Park wiping their kids faces with whatever's handy. Sleeves, old receipts, their own goddamn hand, yeah he gets it now. When you only have two fucks to rub together and someone's crying on your lap, you rearrange your priorities.

He drags them both up with a heroic amount of coaxing and Loki morphs his clothes. J gets them upstairs in seconds, and there's an audience waiting.

"That is a very slow elevator." Hela says.

"Mechanical problem." Tony lies. Loki's squeezing the blood out of his right hand. He decides to throw him a bone. "It's time for your dad to go back to Asgard."

Hela's unreadable, probably saw this coming, but the boys are distressed. Fighting for Loki's attention, and asking him _why why why._

"I will miss you." Loki answers indirectly, with a tension in his jaw. Down on one knee, he tugs Jori to his chest and hugs him. Kisses his hair and says something just for him to hear.

Fen isn't good about sharing. He hovers, scowling and jealous until Loki wraps an arm around him. Once he has what he wants he seems unsure what to do, suddenly fidgety and surly like he thinks he's embarrassed himself. Tony suspects Fen resembles his mother. Normally he's boisterous and self-assured, not much like his father. But just then, shying away from the attention he craves, Tony can see it.

Hela gets a forehead touch and a kiss to the temple because she's Loki's favorite. Yeah, yeah, parents aren't supposed to have favorites, whatever. Everyone knows they do, and Hela is Loki's. She's old enough to read his pain, and she's kind when Loki holds her too long. She just gives Tony a stodgy goth look and bears it, pats his back awkwardly.

They're kids, so of course the weight of the moment is lost on them. They stand around humoring their dad while he has emotions, and probably secretly wish he would hurry up so they can get back to their video games. They have that luxury because they don't know the alternative, and their ignorance satisfies Tony. That's all he wanted.

Loki sticks to the script after that. Tells them how long he'll be gone, and gets a little weepy when he explains that he does not wish to leave them. It's well done, and Tony tells him so as he walks him to the balcony with a hand on his back. The sky is just starting to go a little pink. Tony hits a switch on the way out the door and the living room windows turn frosted.

Loki's eyes are wet, so Tony wipes them with his thumbs. Lingers. Runs one over Loki's aristocratic brow.

Tony says, "I knew you could do it. I knew you would be so good for me."

Loki looks abraded, but his strained features settle into a tranquil sort of daze. His eyes seek him out like homing missiles, and he accepts them, lets him see his approval. Tony wants skin on skin, which is hard to pull off through Asgardian clothes. He manages. There are slits in the back of Loki's coat, and from there he can get his fingers under his shirt, can run them over the hidden skin of Loki's lower back. The contact severs what is left of Loki's control and he crumbles. Sinks right down and the only reason he doesn't bust a kneecap is Tony's arms scrabbling for purchase on his stupid leather coat.

Tony really wishes he had some warning about this. He wants to give Loki some water, and maybe a blanket or something. Shit, his info is about twenty years out of date but there was definitely a blanket and water afterward. That was like, a rule or something. Oh, and kissing. The kissing he's sure about. It was the first time someone kissed him after and not just to get in his pants. You don't forget that kind of thing.

"How do you feel?" Tony asks, arranging Loki so he's sitting with his back against the glass wall at the edge of the balcony.

"Wretched." Loki says. Nice. Another successful procedure. Good of Loki to sugar coat it for him.

"Anything else?" Tony says, really hoping there's something else. He's got nothing.

Loki tries. God, he tries so hard to get it out. But he fails, and then he scowls. Tony puts his hands on Loki's face and soothes him as best he can without any remotely soothing tools to work with.

"Easy. Talk around it, describe it for me." Tony says.

"I am reminded of my love for them." Loki says through clenched teeth, "And the thought of leaving them makes me want to die. To avoid the pain-"

"Ok, ok, you can stop. That's good." Tony says before they fall down that despair pit. It's what he asked for, it's the truthful answer to how Loki feels, but it's so much. It's such a tangled web and he needs more time. He touches their foreheads and sucks Loki's bottom lip, pulls away and slots their mouths together. It's a kind of inverted moment, a mirror to their happy kisses this morning. Equal and opposite.

Tony's knees are starting to complain, so he breaks the kiss and sits on his butt, puts his bent legs on either side of Loki. He reaches out and slides a hand under his leather tunic until he finds a flat stomach, scratchy in a line down the middle. Tony doesn't need to see it to picture it. It's a favorite spot. He flattens his palm and strokes as far as he can reach under the tight layers.

"Let's talk about the relief." Tony suggests, calm exterior hiding a flurry in his brain. "Tell me what makes you feel relieved about the kids being here."

"They are under your care." Loki says. Flat, matter of fact. "There is no safer place they can be."

"Sure. But they are also safe because Earth is protected by Asgard. By you." Tony says.

Loki processes that, looks down at his hands and presses his forehead to the laced fingers. His shallow inhales make his stomach quiver under Tony's hand.

"Does it help when I do what I just did?" Tony asks, "Give you an incentive to do things, I mean."

Loki flattens his hands over his face and his ears go pink.

"Evidently yes." he groans, like he's confessing to some perverse fetish. Ha, so the man that wants to bang in a field ten feet from his children is embarrassed that he, like everyone else, enjoys a pat on the head for doing the right thing. That's adorable.

Tony considers some options. The question of how to monitor Loki for bad thoughts from another realm has been low level bothering him since yesterday. The available tech pretty much limits him to written communication and maybe sending a phone back and forth for some voice recordings. Although anything involving a phone is dodgy at best. It kind of assumes that being deconstructed down to its base molecules, sent a thousand light-years through dark matter, and then reconstructed one ion at a time won't corrupt the hard drive. Not a bet he would put money on. Tony decides to go with Plan A.

"In that case, there is something I want you to do for me this week." Tony says in his— _fuck it, call it what it is_ —his dom voice.

Loki's face pinches, eyebrows slanting warily between splayed fingers on his face. It's almost cute.

"Every day this week, I want you to write me a letter. You can say anything you like, or nothing I guess, if you don't want to." Tony says, "At the bottom of the page, I want you to write a number from one to ten that represents how you felt that day. One is bad, ten is awesome."

Loki shifts his weight, face still red and turning into a look of dread. That's fine, he hasn't gotten to the fun part yet.

"If I have six letters when you get home, you get a reward." Tony smirks.

Loki is red up to his hairline now, and nodding more eagerly than Tony suspects he intends to. _Give him a reason to keep living._ Yeah, he'll give him a good damn reason. He'll make Loki a reason he can't refuse.

"What kind of reward?" Loki mumbles.

Tony scrapes his nails through the coarse hair on Loki's stomach and glides down, shoves it past the laces of his leather pants and squeezes his cock. Tony has to get back on his knees to manage it, but it's worth it for the noise Loki makes when he drags his teeth down his neck.

"How many times did you come today, beautiful?" Tony growls. Loki's breath hitches.

"Four." Loki says. "Four times."

Tony bites the first hickey he finds and Loki keens, arches into it and bucks his hips. Greedy, amazing creature. He already came four times but here he is, primed and ready to go again.

"When you get back I will untether that incredible brain of yours and I will destroy that record." Tony promises, "At least six, Loki, I swear to god. I will make it so fucking good, you have no idea."

Loki gasps, thrusts out of rhythm like he's going to come already and Tony rips his hand away. Loki whines and twists, bores into Tony's eyes with a look of pure betrayal that gets Tony hot in a super bad wrong way.

"And after I'm done with you I'm gonna lay you out on the couch and fucking spoil you rotten." Tony says, matching Loki's look with a burning one of his own, grabs his face and wraps fingers in the hair at his temples. This is the piece de resistance, because however much Loki likes the sex, it isn't the droid he's looking for. "I'll rub your back so you aren't sore later. We'll turn on those dumb cooking shows you love and just lay there making out for the rest of the day. Sound good?"

Chewing his lips raw, Loki rubs a quelling hand over the bulge in his trousers and winces. Glares at Tony with a boiling soup of adoration, frustration, and want. Good. Blue balls build character.

"You are a weapon of mass destruction." Loki swears.

"I love you too." Tony says, and dusts himself off. Pulls Loki to his feet and fixes his clothes so his erection is less obvious. Not that it matters. Being Odin ought to kill his boner pretty fast.

Tony pecks him on the temple and pretends to hold him around the neck just for the opportunity to find the particularly dark hickey hidden on the right side under his collar.

"Now go rule Asgard." Tony says, pressing into the mark to remind Loki to keep it, "And don't forget to write."

"Yes, Anthony." Loki says, his features disappearing behind a grey beard and weary eyes. Tony tries not to look unnerved.

Odin does a complicated spell with his fingers and a locket appears around his neck. Clicking it open with much more ease than Tony can, he pries the two halves apart to reveal a brilliant, glowing blue stone. Oval, smooth, and pulsing like the Tesseract. Son of a bitch.

"I will return." Odin murmurs, and dissolves into a cloud of mist. Wind whips it into the sky, and he imagines the sparkling droplets freezing and condensing until they become other molecules. Slowly tumbling across the universe, he pretends these same particles will find his lover on another world, sitting in a book lined study and writing to him.

For some reason their universe obeys a natural law in which all beings are built of the same enzymes and elements. Even at opposite ends of the galaxy, hiding behind different faces and different names, he and this person he adores are still connected by the shared history of their atomic matter. Action and reaction, the conservation of mass.

He puts his hand over his eyes just in case someone somewhere is watching, and lets tears run down his face just this once.


	9. Chapter 9

The letters are like the literary version of thumbscrews. They start strong. Hope and sexual frustration fuel pages upon pages of witty flirtation and court intrigue in a pretty clear attempt to overachieve. Then things take a turn on Monday and the rest of the week nose dives into a deluge of abject loneliness and despair that would be right at home on Bella Swan's LiveJournal.

It's not that Tony doesn't get it. He's planned his death before, but this is different. The letters allude to bridges in a way that's very voluntary on Loki's part, and Tony never did that. Not even during the palladium scare. Even when he was dying all he wanted to do was experience everything one last time. He's a survivor, that's who the cave made him. So reading the letters pretty much drags a yellow highlighter over all the parts of their relationship that make Tony feel like Loki's issues are their own person, and he's fighting this two against one.

Nothing in the deal stipulates that Tony has to write back, but he finds himself sipping ginger ale out of a tumbler with a notepad on his leg. Writing still isn't his forte, and he's sure there are sections that are totally incomprehensible because his grasp of grammar is about as nuanced as Lucy the sign language gorilla. But he does it because even the nice sounding letters have numbers lower than five scrawled on the bottom right.

Mostly he parrots whatever Loki writes. Tony's own thoughts are too vague to wrestle into sentences, and the internet claims it's vital for him to listen and confirm Loki's feelings. Validating gets harder later on, when all Loki mentions are the woe and misery of living in his not-father's skin. Halfway through a tirade about positive thinking Tony realizes he's basically disregarding everything Loki tried to tell him and crumbles up the page. The next attempt gets derailed at the second sentence when he starts making comparisons to his own father and before he knows it he's scribbled three pages of paternal angst that have nothing to do with Loki's situation. That one goes in the shredder just to give it an extra layer of fuck you.

On the third try he almost, almost dumps the ginger ale for the real stuff. Talking is so much easier. When it's spoken words he can start with a half formed thought and trust his subconscious to fill in the rest. Paper isn't so forgiving. A couple fingers of scotch would loosen him up and make it a lot more like talking, but he made himself a promise while he watched the sun set last Friday and it would be really pathetic for him to cave this soon.

He stares at Loki's elongated lettering, the way the marks seem extra tall and narrow like his partner's own willowy body, and wonders if somewhere in the arrangement of pen strokes is an impression of Loki's hand. Something like a remnant of his physical size and the way his bones make his fingers move that imbues the lines with a fragment of Loki. Maybe he doesn't have to say anything profound or miraculous. Maybe he just needs to dent the paper in his personal hand shapes so Loki can have a piece of him too.

Tony takes a sip of not-the-liquor-he-wants and starts a list of everything good about Loki. He means it to be a brainstorm, but the further he gets the more he thinks the list itself is persuasive. Something about clustering all the evidence together with no context, a tour de force of unjustified affection, gives it a kind of power. The yellow office pad feels like an insult after that, so he pulls out the resumé paper that Pepper only uses for corporate takeovers and one of the signing pens so fancy he keeps them in a box like a Cartier watch.

He rewrites the list, a little regretful that he only ever learned to scribble blocky architect capitals. It turns into a long list. Fifty three lines. On a whim he tears the paper into three strips and writes cheeky messages on the backsides about how Loki will have to be a good boy and write to him if he wants to know the rest. It's efficient if nothing else. Three days covered in one go. Now if only he could stop thinking about it. Maybe finish a project instead of sitting around the lab with a security feed open checking the egg every five seconds.

For all the ups and downs, Loki passes the test. He rules Asgard and he writes by night and both of them count the hours. By Thursday his number is two, and Tony almost orders him to come home. The letter is scant, just two lines reminiscing about the view from the penthouse and a postscript complaining that the pastries on Asgard are bland. Tony decides his list of I Love Yous needs an addendum and sends it rolled up down the center of a tower of donuts.

Somehow they both survive the week, and when Loki strides in from the balcony it is with a manic look in her eyes and a pair of minuscule cut off jeans on her ass. Tony has six letters in a cigar box in the closet. Done deal.

Point of fact, she spends a lot more than just Friday evening on the couch. The new record after her reward is seven and no amount of massages and grapes are gonna excuse her from the aftermath of that marathon. She gets tired of him hovering after a couple hours and turns into a cranky prince while Tony's refilling the hot water bottle. His dear summer child bitches and moans through most of Saturday, but he also steals Tony's Whopper and blows raspberries on his stomach whenever he thinks Tony's attention is wandering, so he's probably fine.

Sometimes when Loki lies his eyes go wide a second later. It's subtle. Immediately covered by a crooked smirk and a condescending tone, but it happens. If Tony pauses the tape and zooms in, the expression he sees is surprise. Like Loki didn't mean to say that. Like now he has to come up with a string of other lies to support the claim and build a whole structure of made up details that he doesn't have waiting in the wings because he wasn't planning on lying.

Invariably, it's about something dumb. Does he want to go out tonight? Yes, yes, of course he does, why wouldn't he want to spend time together? What a silly question. Okay, where does he want to go? Nowhere. Not The Modern, or the Italian place in Queens, or the bistro in San Francisco, or the dive bar in Baton Rouge with the pool tables he charmed to reject odd-year quarters. He doesn't want soup, or korma, or bulgogi, or nachos. He doesn't want so many things that Tony eventually nukes a Hot Pocket and watches him relax into his chair and stuff his face with probably-made-from-donkey-nipple slop. Watches, and wants to dent an impression of his face into the stainless steel cabinets and call it modern art. It's irritating but this is how they operate, no need to be a pussy about it.

Tony gulps down an açai-something super-whatever shake to balance the food karma, and moves them down to the workshop. He's feeling inspired, making rapid progress on the Mark 45. One of Loki's lame prog rock albums croons through the speakers while his highness lounges in a nest on the loveseat that's barely big enough to contain him. He's carrying on a meandering lecture about weaving seidr into thaumaturgic grids, but Tony's only half listening because he got the gist of it twenty minutes ago. For the first time all week he can focus on his work and it's almost better than sex.

"-following that, one only needs to transverse the energy through an axiomatic void and-," Loki pinches his thumb and forefinger and a small flame rises between, "-it will complete combustion organically."

There's a pause, which Tony probably should have acknowledged, but it's kind of a bitch to re-solder eighteen circuits left handed while the part you're working on is wrapped around your other hand. Loki rolls over and drags himself so his arms are crossed over the arm of the loveseat.

"Are you even listening, Stark?"

"Uh, voids, yeah." Tony says, snapping the fingers of the glove to test the mobility. Pretty average, but acceptable. He slaps the gold shell over the mess of pneumatic levers. "Poke it through reality, double knot around time and space. Like cross-stitch but with more… sparkles."

Loki angles his brows.

"Grossly oversimplified." he says, "Are you finished? I wish to sleep."

"How's the scepter scan going?" Tony deflects, connecting the arm to a testing harness around his chest with an arc reactor housed in the center. The glove kicks on and a new interface flickers into view around the wrist, a red spinning ring.

Loki blinks, reflexively tucking his feet back under the faux fur blanket Tony bought for him. It's a weird blanket, but it struck him as very Asgardian and Loki seems to like it. He pets the fur absently and studies Tony while he walks to the loveseat.

"It is well under control." Loki says, carefully off-hand, "What are you doing?"

"Applied guesswork. Want me to call Fury, get a second opinion?" Tony asks, touching his middle finger to the holo bracelet and pulling it over his fingers. The red bracelet extrudes into a bubble to make a shield over his glove.

"I can handle it." Loki says.

"Nothing wrong with needing help." Tony mutters, twisting his hand to test the stability of the projection. Buttery smooth, like everything he makes. "Can you do the flame again?"

"I don't need help." Loki snaps, and Tony realizes they aren't having the same conversation.

"Never said you did." he says, raising his eyebrows and holding out his armored hand. "Come on, light me up. I wanna show you something."

This time his whole hand burns. Tony smirks, a little thrill of excitement shooting up his spine as he sticks his hand in the flame. Once a thrill seeker always one. The heat alone isn't an issue, it wouldn't hurt him even in an old suit. What does make him give a little woop in his head is how the flames don't go past the red translucent field. He looks at Loki, proud of himself, excited to see Loki being impressed with this new gadget but-

Loki sneers, and abruptly his hand snuffs out and a bolt of green energy shoots straight through the anti-magic field and into Tony's hand.

"Shit, ow, what the hell?" Tony shouts, ripping the glove off. An angry burn pulses through the center of his hand, hurts like hell. What the fuck.

"I trust you with secrets in confidence and you immediately use them-"

"Uh, to get ready for the Titan? To keep you safe?"

"To keep me." Loki hisses. "Without fear of my magic stopping you." Loki sweeps the blanket around himself and stalks toward the door.

"Woah, time out." Tony says, chasing after Loki. "I'm not a threat to you, genius, I'm on your side."

"So you claim, and yet you seem to prefer me chained and docile." Loki snarls.

"Uh, have you seen a mirror lately?" Tony replies, frustration getting the better of him, "I think we're both pretty guilty of that."

He has no idea where this is coming from, but Tony isn't crazy about the implications. Loki reaches the threshold, the blanket flowing like a parody of a cape, and he knows they won't finish this conversation if Loki makes it to the elevator. Dashing ahead, Tony puts a hand to his chest and squares his shoulders.

"Is this about the disco stick?" Tony asks, reading Loki's face, "It is. You're picking a fight so I don't press you for details."

Loki clicks open the locket and it bathes his hands in blue. Tony freezes.

"Don't-" Tony says to the empty room. "Damn it!"

The anti-magic glove is on the floor to his right. He punts it as hard as he can into the glass wall and it flies through three rooms beyond.

"Jesus fucking mother bitch!" he shouts, sweeping his arm over the nearest workbench just because it feels good to destroy things. He forgets how much stronger he is these days until the objects go flying through the entire floor and break nearly every glass divider on the east side. He puts his elbows on the now empty bench and puts his head between them. Pulls his hair out. Maybe Loki is right. Maybe he should build an anti-teleportation field and put it around the whole goddamn building. Make Loki storm out on foot like everybody else.

Heeled footsteps sound briskly down the hall, echoing and reverberating in the large atrium of the team floors. For a second he thinks Loki changed his mind, and then he smells Chanel No. 5.

Romanov.

"Wow, he's alive." she says without a hint of surprise, "That's one hell of a Christmas miracle."

"I guess there's no point claiming that was a holographic recording." Tony groans into the table.

"You could." Natasha shrugs, kicks a hydraulic piston out of her way and hops up on the table. "But you look pretty real to me."

"Well, go on, tell me what I missed." Tony says, crossing his arms and putting his head on them when the table starts giving him a headache.

"Aside from everything?"

"I'll take 'The Moment I First Fucked Up' for 500, Bob." Tony huffs, rubbing his eyes.

"Me first." Natasha says, picking up a shard of glass from the table and rotating it between her fingers. "Does Thor know?"

"No."

Natasha hums, and even without looking Tony knows he's been found unworthy.

"He told you himself." she says. "Couple times. You just weren't listening."

"Fantastic." Tony says, and heads for the elevator.

Whatever Loki thought about Tony's applied guesswork, he at least made it clear that he couldn't find the scepter on his own. Anyone that defensive obviously has no options left, so Tony steps in. All it takes is a secure landline to Fury and superheroes start crawling out of the woodwork. A courier arrives the next day with a hard drive full of Hydra files and they're in business. Tony hires a work crew to come and fix the mess he made, and lays on the couch daydreaming of scotch while the television parents the kids for him. QVC counts as educational if the brats don't know what a wristwatch does, right?

Barton comes back two days after Romanov. No one tells Tony of course, because he just researches everything, pays for everything, and makes everyone bad ass shit on his own time. No reason to give him notice.

The rest of the Avengers filter in over the next ten days. No sign of Loki. No letters, no gifts. They have a briefing, and it's about as dull as Tony expects it to be. Opinions are mixed. Not about the scepter, they get why it keeps Tony up at night. Nah, it's Tony himself everyone seems to want to weigh in on, not that he asked for a fucking peer review. Bruce keeps his mouth shut, so each reunion starts with a stilted and obviously insincere expression of grief. Just hearing his so-called friends lie through their teeth about his dearly departed sets him on edge and makes him act like a bastard, which in turn makes it pretty hard to not slip up and use the wrong tense of verb when he talks about him. At least his misery sells the whole grieving spouse thing.

The sticking point is Thor. Fury's good, but Point Break doesn't have a phone so there's not really any way to summon him. At least, not that Fury knows about. That's what Tony assumes anyway, until dear old St. Nick corners him in the communal bathroom and locks the door.

"Sorry, McFurious, but you're not my type." Tony says, washing his hands.

"I thought you liked dodgy and morally grey." Fury replies, and leans on the door with his arms crossed like some kind of nineties boy band poster.

"Now that you mention it-" Tony stops, pretends to consider, "Do I get a prize if I hit the eye patch?"

"You get a prize if you call your BFF and get me the God of Thunder by Thursday." Fury says.

"Sure, I'll have a cell tower put up in hell right away, Chief." Tony says, pulling too many towels out of the holder and drying off his hands. Fury puts his hands in his pockets and looms. It's actually a little intimidating. Tony ought to use that next time the brats demand Cold Stone five minutes before bed.

"I thought you kept your friends a little closer." Fury says, fishes out his phone and flicks a screen cap to the display in the bathroom mirror. It's him and Loki, flying above a field a few hours from Buffalo. Fucking Twitter.

"It was Romanov, wasn't it?" Tony grumbles, tosses the paper towels a little too forcefully in the trash.

"Barton." Fury answers, and quirks a lip like he can't help himself, "Dude's addicted to Facebook. I gotta take his phone during missions."

Tony stands in front of Fury, and they stare each other down for a few seconds. Tony crosses his arms too, because if he's gonna be trapped here then they might as well look like the Men in Black.

"Look, I can't help you. He's gone. No phone." Tony admits. "You're shit outta luck."

"He'll be back." Fury says, and Tony isn't sure if he should feel offended by how close it is to a reassurance. "Search me why, but he's grown on you Stark. Call me when he turns up."

The thumb lock slides open and Fury billows out with as much melodrama as one human being can possibly generate.

"You know you look like an extra from The Matrix in that getup!" Tony calls through the closing door.

Tony sighs. Fury is right. Loki will slink back eventually. Trouble is, Tony isn't sure what he's going to say to him when he does.

Outside of Pepper's sporadic visits the vast majority of Tony's time is spent as the lone adult in a maypole dance of gifted youngsters. The kids are alright. Hela discovers some new social media site and abruptly decides she wants to be a they, and then a ze, and then a demisexual, whatever that is. Tony stops using pronouns all together and buys one of every flag just to be safe.

He's a little alarmed when he cuts open the box and forty flags bearing every color in the known universe fall out. And here he thought he was edgy for letting an alien butt fuck him. Dinner time transforms into a nightly meeting of the Board of Social Justice in which Tony learns that sex now involves a lot more vocabulary and soul searching than it did in the eighties. He also learns about fifteen different words that supposedly describe him and Loki, none of which Tony particularly likes or finds necessary.

The need to qualify and categorize every minute variation of preference eludes him, but he supposes if people want to label themselves then that's their prerogative. He sneaks Hela out for the parade anyway, just for a few minutes, and resists the knee jerk urge to cover (ze? hir?) eyes when the leather daddies walk by in their thongs and chest harnesses. Hela has a tablet and a bedroom with a door, so he assumes Pornhub has already thoroughly scarred the kid. Better to know than to find out on a date, he supposes.

Standing in the street, disguised in a panama hat and sunglasses, he wonders what Loki would make of it all. Music, streamers, the riot of color, and public displays of free love. Probably disgust, or, okay, discomfort. Loki hates noise, crowds, and chief among them transparency. But what if Tony sat them out on the Tower balcony and the two of them just watched? Stared down at the masses and took in the clouds of rainbow powder filling the air with jubilance and integrity and fuck-the-status-quo.

That part he thinks Loki might appreciate, even if the label inside Loki's heart still says ergi. Maybe armed with fancy new words he can finally strike that from the record. Or maybe he would just dump another pile of identities on Loki that still don't fit, that press him into slightly bigger wrong-shaped boxes. He feels very alone that afternoon, surrounded by shining happy couples and thumping base. When the kids go to their rooms and he's stuck with the quiet, he has to give Bruce the liquor key.

Stilted silence only lasts so long in this house. Tony clatters around the kitchen, griping about the kids leaving food out of the fridge and half-listening to a stock report Jarvis puts on the holos. The lined yellow pad is on the bar where he left it, covered in balled up failures and doodles of molecules riding motorcycles. He picks it up.

Seems like it was art class this morning, because there's acrylic splattered all over the Henredon dining table, and some seriously unsightly attempts at self expression laying around. Like honestly, why does this dog shaped blob only have three legs? Couple hundred years old and the bits can't get the legs right. Disgraceful. He puts the least bad ones on the fridge, but only because he needs the table space. And because he wants to horrify Loki with his failure to pass the kids decent genetics.

The blankness of the paper is contagious. It infects his mind and wipes away all coherent thoughts. He sits there tapping dots on the margins and scribbling the weird S shape that was all the rage in middle school in 1983. There's something filtering through the moth balls, and he follows it until it solidifies into an opening remark. He chicken scratches between two lines.

Every time I think we're cool and I can relax, we blow up five minutes later. What's up with that?

The lights flicker overhead, and then go out before he can contemplate what he wants to say next. There's a fraction of a moment where his adrenal system goes nuts, and then the glass wall behind him shatters. Explosive force throws him over the table and he crashes into the kitchen island head first, his dense pseudo-immortal body blowing straight through it where he previously would have crumpled to the floor.

Everything is black while his eyes adjust too slowly to the lack of light. He can make out a pair of blurry figures, both tall and distinctly not human. Despite the ringing in his ears he forces himself to get up, to grab a knife from the block and duck behind the knocked over dining table. The kids or the bad guys, he can't decide what the priority is. Shit, he doesn't know if the brat nuggets are even in their rooms, he didn't say goodnight.

"Laufeyson!" An intruder calls. Oh damn, that's not a good sign. Only the real criminals know Loki's other-other last name.

"You have crossed us for the last time, welp." A higher pitched, slightly more menacing voice says. Double damn. Tony peaks over the table. Yeah, definitely aliens, glowing spears and all. He counts three fingers on a silhouetted hand. Not very helpful, since he could be concussed or the aliens could only have three fingers.

"If you're looking for the Star Trek costume contest, it's a couple blocks down." Tony grunts, "You'll have to hitch a ride."

Pushing himself to his feet, Tony throws the knife. Off target. Great. The alien with the horns throws the glowing spear at him, and he sidesteps, barely fast enough. Then the blade reverses and returns to her hand, which is such cheating. Damn, how has he never made Cap a shield like that?

"Jarvis?" he calls, on the off chance it works. Nothing.

Bare feet slap down the hall to the bedrooms, and Tony runs to intercept whoever it is. Hela launches herself toward him, freaked out in a tank top and basketball shorts. She's blue for once, and hazy.

"Get down!" he shouts.

"What?" ze asks, and then points over his shoulder, hir mouth gaping. Tony throws himself to the floor as two spears slice where his head was. Kicking his good leg in an arc, he manages to drop one of them. The other angles her glowing spear in a downward slash, and Tony just barely gets his hands on the shaft in time to deflect it into the concrete by his head. It's pretty even as far as strength goes, but Tony's got the ground at his back. A solid kick to the gut sends her flying into the side of the couch.

"Get the breaker. In there." Tony tells Hela, pointing at the closet. Ze nods, darting through the door, and then he's tackled by the first alien, the one he knocked down. He never did get the hang of wrestling. The probably male alien gets him around the neck and Tony flails.

"It's a grey box in the wall with stuff in it. Flip all the switches." he chokes, hands gripping the alien's arms and rolling them over. Using his weight to hold the guy down, Tony elbows him in the forehead. The thing's too-long X-Files arms go limp and Tony climbs up to his feet, panting. Wow, he is so out of shape. Of course he'd be a smear on the island if he were mortal right now, but the point stands.

"My brothers?" Hela calls from the closet, just as a howl echoes down the hall.

"On it." Tony replies, hauling ass to the boys room and breaking down the door with a single shoulder collision. Being enhanced has its advantages, he can admit that now. He can also admit that it's kind of fun to watch a giant wolf play catch with an alien. Then the lights come back on and Tony has to be a grown up. They can't afford for the security footage to show the kids' combat abilities. He's required to turn it over to the World Security Council every three months or they get deported, and this is definitely not going to make them happy.

"Drop it, Fen." Tony says sternly, counting two one-thousands in his head and then whacking the pup on the nose. "Right now or I'm taking your Playstation."

Fen slams the mangled alien down and grumbles. Tony kicks a bookshelf sideways and pulls the lever in the wall behind it. The wall opens to the safe room he built for just such an occasion, because he's psychic or something. Fen's too big to fit through the door.

"Put your blues on, I don't have all day." Tony says, and hears a groan from the floor. The lady alien is waking up, her fingers clenching into fists. He kicks her in the base of her horns and she hits the TV stand on the back wall. Oops.

Fen shrinks down, pouting up a storm and pulling on his pajamas.

"Where's Jori?" Tony asks, dropping to his knees to look under the bed. The kid goes all kinds of fun places when he's serpentine and scared. Nothing under the bed, and no traces of movement by the radiator where he likes to curl up.

"Jori safe." Fen says. He digs in Jori's bed, throwing the sheets around and holds up a little garter snake about a foot long. That's new. He's never going to get used to talking to random woodland animals like some sweaty, cross-dressing Cinderella.

"Kid, you alright?" he asks the, well, tiny biter. The snake stares at him. He guesses it kind of looks like Jori. Maybe. Fen seems convinced, so yeah that's him. Tony would know him in any form, cause he's the best step-dad ever. Okay, fine, he has no idea, but it's likely enough for him.

"Alright, get in. Don't leave until Jarvis says it safe." Tony says pointing to the safe room, and the snake crawls up Fen's sleeve.

"I'm tired." Fen whines, and Tony might burst a blood vessel. Fucking kids.

"Then kip on the sofa. That's what it's for. Hurry up." He says, hustling the boy in and locking the door. One less thing to worry about. Sweet relief. He turns to restrain the horned alien that broke the TV stand only to find the pile of rubble unoccupied. Just his luck.

"Jarvis, status report." Tony shouts, skidding into the now lit hallway and rushing toward the sounds of a struggle in the living room.

"Two hostiles in the living area, sir. Mr. Liesmith is engaging them. The rest of the building is secure. Lockdown initiated."

"Good man, J. Get me a suit ASAP." Tony says, dashing through the arched end of the hallway and taking in a breathtaking two versus one brawl. Credit to the aliens, they could take a punch. The intruders have Loki flanked, alternating blows with their spears and pushing him into a corner. He's putting up a good fight, summoning blades from nowhere and sending them flying with unpredictable punches and kicks in a style very different from his usual. Something's off here, and Tony thinks he knows what it is.

Tony vaults the sofa and beans the horned one on the back of the head, Thor style. The lady alien rolls with the impact and swings around to tag him back with her spear. Now he has the advantage, forcing the enemies back to back while he and Loki attack them from both sides.

"Nice shorts." Tony says, trading blows with his opponent and skirting around feral kicks. For some reason "Loki" is wearing an Avalon High tank top that stretches tight over his pecs and the same basketball shorts Hela ran in wearing. Clever kid. Now the security footage won't show her engaging in violence.

"Shall I select something more alluring next time?" ze retorts in a pretty compelling impression of hir father while delivering a vicious kick to the male alien's groin. Ew, no flirting, even if it's just to sell the illusion. That's creepy old man territory.

"Less talking, more stabbing." Tony says, and has to jump back to avoid the fucking spear. Accounting for the return flight, Tony feints left and hits her underhand in the solar plexus. She takes the hit better than she should and nails him in the temple with a sucker punch from hell.

Sloppy, he thinks as his head screams, should have had a guard ready for that. He's already ruined a kitchen cabinet with his face tonight, so the direct hit blacks him out for a second. His vision comes back swimming, and he stumbles backwards, can't keep his feet. The spear returns to the owner's hand and Tony knows he's done for. It's too fast, and he's too wrong-footed to dodge. The spear catches him in the shoulder and the horned woman follows his momentum to the ground, plunging the tip into the floor so he's trapped and breathing around metal. The familiarity of the sensation doesn't make it any more bearable.

Not-Loki shouts from across the room and a blow lands with a wet sound and a gurgling cry. Tony can't move to look, but then a severed head rolls into view and he doesn't need to. He closes his eyes and tries to keep breathing around the pain. It's his left shoulder, because of course it had to be.

"Corvus!" the horned alien shouts, and runs to the body. Ug, he's going to have alien blood all over the carpet. The penthouse is going to be a complete do over. Suddenly the spear rips back out of him and he screams, can't help it. His chest feels warm and wet, and he clumsily balls up his pansexual pride t-shirt around it. So much for the souvenir.

"You should not have come, Proxima." Loki growls, "Thanos will pay for this."

Wait, what? Tony perks up at that, tries to raise his head but it hurts. Hela doesn't know about Thanos.

"It is you who will pay." Midnight swears, and a flare of light whites everything out for a second. When Tony opens his eyes, she's gone and the head is still on the floor, staring at him with dead eyes. Loki laughs, sheaths his blade.

"Coward." he spits, and comes to squat by Tony.

"Nice going, kid, you can drop the act." Tony says. Things are getting fuzzy. His hands are sticky and he tastes copper on his teeth.

"Fool, where is your suit?" Loki whispers, his expression worried. He lays a hand on Tony's shoulder and pulls the wadded shirt away, inspects the wound.

"Seriously it's getting weird." Tony says, but then Hela fills the other half of his vision. He smiles in spite of everything. "Oh. Hey, Slugger."

"Hush." Loki says, his hand glowing gold and weaving seidr through the axiomatic voids. He listened, he wants to say. For some reason it seems epically important that he prove to Loki he was listening that night. He lays his hand on Tony's chest and things get clearer. The wound isn't any better but the bleeding stops and his head reduces it's pulsing.

"Jarvis, call Doctor Cho." Tony croaks, and relaxes once he knows she's in route. Hela leaves to get the boys out of cold storage, and Loki lays him out so he can bleed on the couch. Yup, he sees a floor to ceiling remodel in his future.

"What did you do, Lokes?" Tony asks. He thinks it's a fair question, last week these guys were just ghosts, now they're busting in his house like it's Mission: Impossible. Loki must have done something.

"Nothing we did not discuss." Loki says, looking guilty.

"Just once I wish you'd say nothing, and actually mean nothing." Tony grumbles, "The scepter?"

"If not for that idiot Skurge all would have been well." Loki says darkly, "He had one job to do. One."

"God damn it, we could have just called Fury." Tony says. "But no, you had to fly off the handle."

"I am only doing what needs to be done." Loki hisses, "Is that not what you said about your suit?"

Ah, there's the headache again. God, everything hurts.

"Don't. Let's not fight." Tony says, "I, ugh, I actually don't think I have the energy."

"We are not fi-" Loki begins.

Tony passes out.

The skin regrowing tech is pretty fantastic, he has to admit. And he doesn't admit that about other people's tech very often. Within the space of an hour he's back in the black. Actually a lot better, since the spear cut through a good half of the scar tissue in his arm and now it's tender new baby flesh. His head is another matter unfortunately, and thanks to the moderate concussion he's in for a very long, unpleasant night of coma watch. Cho leaves him under Jarvis' supervision, which is great because Tony has override codes. Jarvis generally finds a loophole in about twelve minutes, but it's enough to get out of the hospital suite.

He's still far from top notch, but the full scope of his gaff with Loki earlier is dawning on him. Yeah, that tone was definitely not great. He's a sensitive dude, whatever he wants people to think. Tone matters. He's probably sulking now, since he didn't stay in the hospital suite. Best not to let it fester.

"Jarvis, where's Loki?"

"In the locker room, sir." Jarvis says, "I find it prudent to warn you that he is armed."

Ha, that's hilarious. Loki doesn't need weapons to hurt anyone, not by a long shot.

"Cool your jets, J, I'm just looking for a hook up." Tony jokes. Luckily the bathrooms are right by the elevator. He doesn't have to go far.

When he walks in, Loki's sitting with one foot on either side of the locker room bench, sharpening a throwing dagger. The room is pitch black except for a line of harsh white spotlights over the bench, little circles of intense brightness that catch the edges of his wavy hair and the crisp diamond pattern of his armor. His blade slides over a black ceramic whetstone with quiet schick noises that make the room feel small. Tony sits, matches him knee to knee.

"You want to tell me who that was?" he asks, clasping his hands and leaning on his knees.

"Call him an old friend." Loki says, holding the little dagger under the spotlight and inspecting the edge.

"Charming. Got any more 'old friends' that might wanna murder you?" Tony asks.

"Only half the known universe." Loki says. "Give or take."

"Great. Awesome. Anyone more specific?" Tony presses.

"I told you his name, I don't know how much more specific I could be." Loki says cheerfully, like this is all a big joke.

"Stop messing around. You did something to piss these guys off and now they're knocking on my door."

"If my guilt is predetermined, perhaps we can skip to the punishment. That at least has the potential to be fun." Loki snarls, slapping down his sharpening tools and sheathing the knife in his belt.

"Always fun and games with you." Tony sighs.

"Well you must admit, it is amusing." Loki says, tilting his head and smiling sharply, "All that bluster, only to be slain by an adolescent."

"Alien invasions are not amusing." Tony says.

"You seem to like my invasions well enough." Loki says, eyes sparkling.

"I like that you're pretty and good with knives, not that you create trouble wherever you go." Tony bites back.

"So you would have me chained and domesticated?" Loki accuses.

"Stop trying to distract me." Tony sighs, and rubs his aching head. He really doesn't have the energy for this right now. Loki huffs, scratching at his stubble. Damn, he must have been busy, it takes him a week to get a five o'clock shadow.

"I shall sleep better knowing Corvus is dead, it matters not how it was achieved." he says and stands as if to leave.

"Exactly, so who else is part of the boy band?" Tony asks, hand on Loki's arm. "I say we take the next fight to them."

Loki stares down at him, hair and shoulders haloed by the harsh light, thoughtful.

"Sit down. We'll do this together." Tony says. "I didn't mean to make you feel like the bad guy. I'm sorry."

Loki pulls in a measured breath and sits, puts his hands on his knees.

"At last we arrive on the same page." he says.

"Yeah, my bad." Tony says, tapping his gauze wrapped head, "Not all there right now."

"I suppose you will want to know what happened." Loki edges.

"And I suppose you don't want to tell me."

"As a matter of fact, I am quite eager." Loki quirks a lopsided grin. Oh, really?

"Go on." Tony says, sitting up straight and tilting his head. Loki wanting to talk is intriguing in a standing-on-the-side-of-a-cliff way.

"Well, following our disagreement I was not willing to sit idly any longer. I decided to disguise myself as a Chitauri guard and infiltrate the Titan's stronghold using the Space Stone. With my powers and those of the stone, it seemed quite a safe endeavor." Loki explains. Still smiling, even though Tony already knows this didn't end well.

"And you got caught?" Tony asks. Loki itches his stubble again and pinches his brows.

"I had forgotten that one of his children is mildly telepathic." he says. "One small oversight in an otherwise quite successful endeavor."

"Sure." Tony says, opting not to derail Loki's refreshingly full disclosure just to bitch him out about what a big oversight that actually was.

"As it happens," Loki says, and now he's properly smug, arching his brows playfully and gesturing with open hands, "The Titan does not possess any stones at all."

"Sounds like kind of a let down." Tony says, raising his brows and playing along. It's hard not to get sucked in when Loki's being charming and flippant in the face of annihilation.

"Oh, but he is far from retired." Loki says, getting more animated as he draws near the punchline, "In fact he has been quite industrious in a campaign against the Nova Corps. A large federation of planets in another galaxy, with a substantial military force."

So Tony's instincts had been right, that day they'd first discussed this guy. Thanos? Yes, that's what Loki called him earlier. Even now the only thing keeping Earth out of his mind was a more appealing target, a bigger threat he had to beat back first. Seems like every time Tony thinks he's ended the arms race, it just gets bigger in scale, includes more distant enemies. He's getting tired of it.

"Why bother?' Tony asks, "What's so special about them?"

"That is the interesting part." Loki agrees. "The Titan believes the Nova Corps possesses a stone of their own. The Power Stone. According to the Titan's children, he has slain half the population in his efforts to seize it."

Tony pinches his nose. This whole mystical scavenger hunt is getting out of hand.

"How many stones are there?" Tony asks. Maybe if there are a couple dozen they don't actually have to worry about someone getting all of them. It would be too improbable.

"When last we spoke, I knew of only three. Following my bit of espionage, I can tell you with confidence that there are six."

Fuck. Six is not enough to just ignore and roll the dice.

"Mind, Space, Reality, Power…" Tony lists, counting fingers as he goes.

"Soul, and Time." Loki finishes.

"Time?"

"By far the most dangerous in my estimation." Loki says. Hm, Tony has to agree with that. He's seen Terminator.

"It was an insane, unforgivable, reckless, stupid thing to do." Tony says, taking Loki's hands in his.

"It was also the right call." Loki insists. And damn, but it feels good to hear him defend his decision.

"Yeah." Tony admits, "It was the right call. You going back to Asgard?"

Loki plays it cool, but a muscle works in his jaw. He squeezes Tony's hands.

"Just so. My investigation consumed my usual period of respite."

They kiss. A short, sad thing stolen in a dark room. Tony doesn't want to go back to past battles, but he's running out of time and he can't wait another week.

"You know I would never use my armor against you, right?" Tony asks.

Loki nods, chews on the inside of his cheek.

"I was-" he sighs, "You thought me unable to handle my responsibilities, and I struck where i knew you were insecure."

"Don't do that again. Please." Tony says.

"The effect was not enjoyable." Loki agrees, looking down, "At the time it was suffocating. But once I was alone, it became clear that I did not wish to be."

"Well, work on that. And I'll stop implying you can't handle yourself." Tony says, stands up and massages his newly healed arm. It itches like crazy. On the inside. Loki stands as well, and gives Tony a hand to stabilize with as he steps over the bench.

"Well met." Loki says, kissing him once more, a bit longer. Yearning. "I will return."

"See you soon." Tony says, and catches a few drops of mist in his hand. Waits for it to dry. Settles into the now familiar emptiness of Loki dissolving in front of him. Funnels that emotion into something deadly and useful. Doctor Cho isn't going to let him sleep for twelve hours anyway, so he might as well spend the time in the shop putting Loki's intel to use.

"Jarvis, open a new project folder. Top secret, Level 1 clearance only, offline private server." Tony says, walking to the elevator with more confidence than he feels.

"What shall I name the program, sir?" Jarvis asks.

"Put it in the A.I. directory. Codename: Ultron."

"Yes, sir."


	10. Chapter 10

Sumptuous silks and luxurious leathers, Tony discovers, are not idle promises. The reconstructed house in Malibu is an exercise in tasteful excess, and Tony feels vaguely like he should be wearing a toga every time he visits. From the sprawling arched ceilings painted in iconic murals to the hand embroidered scarlet drapes, every inch of the estate glimmers with a sheen of wasted money. It is so inexcusably tacky that Tony kind of loves it. Unfortunately, the spa-like atmosphere of the house doesn't change he and Loki's turbulent trajectory.

Moving west becomes something of a foregone conclusion with the return of Avenger's business. The tower never sleeps anymore, and neither do the teams of security personnel that Tony pays good money to watch it. He would have to be an idiot to keep Loki there. It's damn inconvenient, though, because even in his fastest jet it's a four hour trip one way. The Space Stone helps, but he only gets that luxury when Loki has the time, which isn't often. Apparently he has been using Odin's age and poor health as his excuse to come see his family each week, and the guards are becoming correspondingly paranoid about his disappearances.

Tony's about ready to just give up the ghost and kick Odin in the face until he rises and shines. They have kept this up for nearly six months and he's sapped. Long distance isn't something he has dealt with before, because he's never actually missed someone when they aren't around. Pepper came close, but back then he was usually the one looking for more space while she pined, and it's different from the other side of the fence. For a while it was maybe a little bit fun. Long weeks of anticipation punctuated by days of primal, rough incredi-sex. But after a month it becomes routine, and two weeks after that it feels like a chore, so Tony stops trying.

Loki doesn't comment, so either he agrees that they need a break or he's silently tearing himself to shreds over Tony's loss of interest. Column B should be more concerning, but he's embraced a kind of zen about Loki's freak outs. His self esteem fades in and out with no discernible pattern or stimulus, and trying to keep a hand on the wheel just makes Tony feel even more guilty when they inevitably crash.

The constant together-then-apart turns their weekend escapes sour. Even as Tony's heart leaps at the smell of Loki's skin and the solid feeling of his shoulder against his cheek, his mind whispers not to get used to it, he'll be alone again tomorrow. Seeing Loki lights him up with pain and happiness and despair all churned together, ugly like the muddy brown you get when you mix too many colors of paint. They take up jigsaw puzzles just to have an excuse to cram into each other's space and not talk. Nowadays they silently meet on the couch every Friday so they can bicker about whether this puzzle piece belongs in the blue pile or the green one.

Just when he thinks he can't take this torture any longer, gold rings start appearing and replicating in every cabinet of their Malibu kitchen. He tries to clean them out, but if he misses even one they multiply like bunnies all over again. It starts with the flatware, then the coffee mugs, and then the pantry. It goes quiet for a few days and Tony thinks it's over until the big cabinet over the oven splits apart and a tsunami of rings sweeps from the oven all the way to the breakfast nook. He is pelted with precious metal every time he goes for a plate or a cup, and it's such a Loki prank that he smiles even as he flinches and tries to escape the golden hail. Maybe it's the power of suggestion, or maybe it's brain damage, but he starts thinking dangerous thoughts about tuxedos and bouquets, and runs downstairs to the garage before he gets ahead of himself. Something about the prank wakes him up, assures him that Loki still likes him even if all they do is mope around.

Meanwhile the team circles the globe kicking names and taking ass. They sweep Europe first, then Asia, then South America. Tony learns the phrase "capitalist pig" in every known language and starts to appreciate the artistic qualities of the anti-Avengers hate graffiti. The ones in Shanghai are masterful, forming his red and gold silhouette out of interwoven Mandarin characters for 'murderer', 'devil', and 'tyrant'.

Eventually they run out of parties to crash, and Tony buys a parka off Amazon. There's only one base left on Earth, and it's tucked away in the snowy mountains of a country he particularly hates.

"Sokovia?" Loki repeats, wrinkling his nose, "Never heard of it."

"Well, it's heard of you." Tony says, flicking a holo display to Loki over the conference table in the home office. Loki's about to go back to Asgard, but he was nice enough to give Tony a lift back to New York. "Readings match the ones we took off the scepter in 2012."

"Then I presume it is time?" Loki asks, feet crossed and resting on the table, office chair leaning precariously far back.

"Yupperoni." Tony says, standing up. He pulls out the abomination of a phone he's been working on and slides it across the glasstop into Loki's waiting hand. "Latest model. The new coolant should keep it from frying."

Loki inspects it with a lopsided smirk. It looks like a nineties brick phone, held together by wing knuts and L brackets with an honest to god analog receiver. The plastic of the ear piece is bubbled and scorched from their last attempt, and a helix of heat exchange coils now winds its way around that end. He's kind of ashamed to put his name on it, but there wasn't time for spinning rims. The team has raided almost fifty Hydra bases over three months in nearly every continent, and that doesn't leave much time for R&D. The point is, they now have a direct wireless line that can't be hacked or tapped, and that might even work while Loki is on Asgard.

"You have outdone yourself." Loki says, "It is even more hideous than the last."

"What can I say? I'm an achiever, I achieve things." Tony says. Walks around the table to squeeze Loki's shoulders and paw at his neck. He's tense.

"You may do that as long as you wish." Loki groans. They exchange glances and Loki lets his head roll forward to give Tony more room to work. It's one of Loki's small acts of trust, a motion that says I yield to you and makes Tony want to be worthy of the privilege.

While he works he thinks about the bottomless rings, and all the stuff he wishes he and Loki could do together. Thinks about the hopeless expanse of time in which he and Loki will continue to struggle against long distances with no clear end in sight. And, honestly, he thinks a bit about sudden changes in behavior, and scrambles for some emotional insurance that Loki will still be here when he gets back.

"That reminds me," Tony says, haltingly, "Once the glow stick is locked up, why don't we go somewhere? Leave the blueberries with Xavier…"

"A vacation?" Loki asks, surprised.

"That's one way of looking at it-" Tony hedges, "or, you know, a, um, a different kind of… trip."

Loki brings his head back to look at him upside-down, eyebrows raised. Blinks at Tony's pathetic bumbling. Pointedly doesn't interrupt him. God damn it, Tony is making this more awkward than it needs to be.

"More like a honeymoon." he says.

Loki attempts to hold a blank expression, but that just makes his lips twitch at the corners.

"I have been reliably informed that marriage precedes honeymoons."

"Oh, right." Tony says, feigning forgetfulness, "Then I guess we'll just have to do one of those too. For the honeymoon, you know."

"Oh yes, only for the honeymoon." Loki nods sagely.

"You wouldn't-" Tony clears his throat, "You'd be okay with that?"

Loki loses the battle with his face muscles and gives him a fond smile.

"I would wear your ring proudly, Anthony." he says, spinning his chair around so Tony's standing between his legs.

"Shame I don't have it yet." Tony says, scratching at his chest with a rueful look.

"On Asgard it is customary to forge one's own courting gifts." Loki offers.

Taking advantage of the new angle, Tony laces his fingers behind Loki's neck and plays with his hair. Pretends to think about it.

"Well, I am an expert with gold-titanium alloys."

"A pity you must go to Sokovia, then." Loki says, put out, "We shall have to wait."

Fuck, he's right. Waiting, waiting. He's tired of waiting. He didn't exactly plan to do this now, and he feels like he blew it despite Loki's answer. Running a quick inventory, he gets an idea and tugs Loki out of the chair. Pulls him down the spiral stairs hand in hand and steps over piles of building materials and workmen's tools.

He keeps a drawer of candy to bribe the kids with, regularly stocked by his personal shopper. His desperately dateless personal shopper. He reaches in and digs until he finds the box of Ring Pops that he thinks is a veiled invitation. Pulls out a bright red one in a plastic wrapper.

"What-" Loki starts, but Tony puts a finger to his lips and shushes him.

"Placeholder." Tony says, treating him to a suggestive smirk, "It's candy. That you wear. And if you get bored you can suck on it."

"Ah," Loki replies, the corners of his eyes crinkling, "a practical accessory."

"Everyone likes useful gifts, right?" Tony smirks, patting him on the shoulder and slipping the candy under his wide, criss-crossed belt where Tony knows he keeps a Stark phone and a slender black wallet hidden. After Tony shredded Loki's armor in the jacuzzi he picked up some new duds, and they're real nice. Tailored in curved V shapes around his trim waist and narrower in the shoulders. He cuts a less intimidating figure without the big shoulder flaps, but the lack of pretense makes him seem stronger at the same time. Like he's learned that being big doesn't make you right. He puts his right hand over Tony's where there are still two fingers slipped under his belt.

"I will treasure it always." Loki drawls, "Will you be away long? What of the children?"

"I'm trying to figure that out." he sighs, "Hopefully we won't be long. Happy's scheduled for the first forty-eight hours, but I can't work him any longer without a day off. You'll have to check on them after that."

Loki nods and drags Tony into a strong kiss. His intensity surprises him after their abstinent month. The force of it makes his head tilt back to accommodate Loki's height, and he smiles into Loki's jaw when they break apart. It's nice to be appreciated.

"Do be careful." Loki whispers.

"That's not usually an option."

Loki grimaces.

"Then be clever in your carelessness." he amends, and that's a rule Tony can agree to one hundred percent.

"Shit!" Clint yells into the team comms, the sounds of a scuffle coming through from the background.

"Language." Tony says on rote, and then wants to permanently mute himself.

"Did anyone else hear Stark say 'language?' " Clint laughs.

"Shut your trap, Barton."

"Woah, you kiss your step-babies with that mouth?" Clint taunts.

"I think it's nice." Steve says, just polite enough that it's unclear whether he's mocking Tony or defending him. "We're heroes. We oughta be good role models."

"It just slipped out." Tony grumbles, and takes his anger out on the Hydra shield generator.

The raid goes about as well as possible, which is a mixed bag. Lots of casualties on Hydra's side, and lots of property damage. Clint injured. Hostile locals, because they wouldn't be humans if they didn't resent you for saving them. Plus the most fucking inconvenient PTSD flashback of Tony's life.

Silver lining, they have the scepter. If you can call that a silver lining. On the Quinjet Tony gets his first good look at it since Loki bad touched his reactor three years ago. It's still creepy. Thor comes to stand beside him, looking grim. Tony thinks that's pretty rich, given that Loki had to straight up order Thor to come deal with this. Apparently the god of pearly white smiles is taking his breakup with Jane pretty hard.

"Feels good, yeah? I mean, not that I haven't enjoyed our little raiding parties." Tony says, aiming for casual.

"No, but this brings it to a close." Thor replies, nodding with a finality that Tony thinks has a bit of a double meaning. Thor's here settling the affairs of his supposedly dead brother after all. They really need to tell him, somehow. It's gonna be a trainwreck.

"As soon as we find out what else this has been used for." Steve says, and for once Tony's glad for Cap's meddling.

"Banner and I will give it the once over before it goes back to Asgard." he says to Thor, then realizes he's gotten a little too comfy telling gods what to do and backtracks, "If that's okay with you? Just for a few days until the farewell party. You're staying right?"

Thor looks very much like he wants to leave right away. Tony mimics a put out expression Loki has used on him a hundred times, and Thor caves.

"Yes, of course, victory should be celebrated with revels." Thor says, forcing a smile.

"Yeah, I love revels." Tony says, picturing an all together different kind of celebration. At least he hopes it's different, because he's gonna need therapy if Thor's revels include bending his brother over the back of the couch.

"Clint, you've had a tough week. We won't hold it against you if you can't get it up." Tony jokes, and takes a sip from his glass.

The party turns out to be a decent distraction from his failure making Ultron. Good company, better food, and a bartender skilled enough to make Tony's cocktail enjoyable despite the lack of alcohol. He's been tailing Thor on the off chance that he can convince him to give Tony more time with the scepter, but no dice. It's clear that Gun Show would rather be in bed eating Asgard's version of ice cream in his underwear, and Tony can't really argue with him. He feels the same.

Clint stands up, all bashful self-deprecation and puts a hand on the hammer. Pulls and cracks up.

"I still don't know how you do it!" he laughs.

"Smell the silent judgement." Tony smirks.

"Please, Stark, by all means."

Tony puts Jori down, unbuttons his blazer and tosses it over the nearest chair.

"I'm never one to shrink from an honest challenge." he says wryly, slides his hand through the strap and pulls. Maybe half-asses it a bit. It's magic. Physics don't enter into it.

Still, this is a party. He might as well give everyone a laugh.

"One moment." he says, and gestures for his right gauntlet. "So if I lift this, I rule Asgard?"

"Yes, of course." Thor says, smug. The suit, of course, makes no difference, but it gets the crowd going and soon everyone's taking a shot at it. It's good clean fun, until Hela steps into the circle and everyone goes quiet.

"May I?" ze asks, smooth but with a tension in hir shoulders. Thor's involvement in the imprisonment of the baby gods is something of an elephant in the Tower. One Thor generally takes care to avoid.

"Of course, bróðurbarn." Thor says, trying to keep a boasting tone. Hela's thin lips twitch upward in a flash of a smile, hir eyes scanning him closely and hir eyebrows pinching in the middle. Ze concentrates, and with a flicker of white magic transforms into him. Thor's not smiling now.

"I don't think he would like you calling me that." Hela mutters in Thor's rich voice, and carefully wraps both hands around the handle. Bruce shoots Tony a questioning look, and Tony shakes his head. It's not one of the words he knows. Could mean anything.

Hela pulls sharply, and to everyone's surprise, the hammer actually shifts. It doesn't rise, which makes hir scowl, but Tony's positive that it moved. Thor looks nervous, but he huffs out a relieved laugh when Hela lets go.

"A clever notion," Thor says, taking a drink from his beer, "but Mjolnir does not fall for tricks."

"Mjolnir is a trick." Hela pouts, transforming back into hirself, the true form with the half dead face, not the human glamour.

"I agree." Tony says, patting Hela on the back, "All deference to the Man Who Wouldn't Be King, but it's rigged. Whosoever carries Thor's fingerprints is, I think, the literal translation."

"You bet your ass." Clint agrees.

"Oh, he said a bad language word." Hill says, eyeing Tony mischievously.

"Who told you about that?" Tony groans, and Steve laughs into his beer, the traitor.

"Well, that's a very, very interesting theory." Thor says, a lot more confident now the game is over, "I have a simpler one. You're all not worthy."

He gives the hammer a smarmy little flip, but a sharp ringing ruins the moment. Gets everyone looking around, and makes them jump when a mangled Legionnaire shuffles out of the lab and leaks pneumatic fluid all over the floor.

"No… how could you be worthy? You're all killers." the suit says.

"Jarvis." Tony mutters, pulling out his phone on reflex, eyes never leaving the robot. "Reboot. We need you here, we got a buggy suit."

Jarvis doesn't answer.

"Who sent you?" Thor asks.

The mangled legionnaire rotates, like it's gyroscope is tweaked. Tony's voice comes out of its vocalizer.

"I see a suit of armor around the world."

"Ultron." Bruce says.

"In the flesh." Ultron replies, and Tony doesn't hear anything else over the roar of his pulse in his ears. Iron Legion units crash through the lab walls and Tony dives for Fen and Jori before they are even through the glass. He lands with Fen against his chest and rolls so he's crouching over him. Jori is a tiny coil of garter snake on a pile of clothes and Tony shoves him in Fen's pocket.

Steve kicks up the coffee table and glass rains down over everything. He hits the ground hard beside Tony and slides. It's the home invasion all over again, his blood is pumping and he doesn't know what to do first.

"Don't shift." Tony says sharply to Fen and the kid nods, hyperventilating. A blast hits Tony right in the back and the force takes him and Fen right off the edge of the platform and crashing to the next level down. He takes out a bookcase and by some miracle lands with Fen on his chest. The glass wall shatters above him and he can't do anything but watch as a Legionnaire flies off with the damn scepter. He's about to call for Thor when an enormous falcon soars after it.

"Hela, stop!" he calls, but it's too late. Ze's gone. Tony carries Fen upstairs, taking the steps two at a time and scanning the scene. There's three units running, all of them airborne. Clint tosses Steve his shield and Rogers takes aim. Tony shoves Fen under the grand piano and dashes up another stairway to the top level. That puts him roughly as high as one unit and he leaps for it. He's barehanded, unarmored, but that stuff is mostly for convenience these days. When push comes to shove, he can bare knuckle with the best of them.

There's a kill switch buried in the neck area, but he can't get his fingers in there while riding the bucking bronco, so he just rips the head clean off. That leaves a red wire nice and exposed, and it's a simple thing to tug it out of the circuit. The unit blinks off, and Tony realizes he probably should have thought of an exit strategy before he jumped. He misses the main level all together and falls to the bottom floor. Lands on his side with a thud and gets the wind knocked out of him. Steve takes out the last unit with a clean slice of his shield, and the fight is over.

Tony rubs his eyes, does a quick check of his limbs and everything works. He sits up in the human shaped crevice he left in the concrete, and sees Thor staring down at him from the next floor up. His gaze is keen, eyes a bit wide and mouth slightly open. Then his eyebrows flatten, his mouth turns into a stern frown, and Tony knows he's figured something out. Thor swings his hammer and goes out after Hela, but his eyes track Tony the entire way, and it sends a chill from his scalp clear to his toes.

Thank god it's Friday, Tony thinks as he keys in the security code to the private elevator by hand. It's dark because he doesn't know where any of the light switches are. He has never needed to use such low tech backups before. Existing without Jarvis is like walking around without one of his senses.

The kids are shaken, huddling against his legs, and he doesn't know what to do. Hela is still missing. Jori is clutching Tony's belt loop like a crab, quivering slightly and hiding inside Tony's suit jacket, which he's wearing like a trench coat. Fen's half asleep standing up, but he keeps jumping suddenly back to wakefulness right when Tony thinks he might fall over. Every time he does it his hands grow claws, and Tony has to grab them until Fen wakes up all the way and sees that he's not in danger. The panic cycle fucks with Tony's calm.

The elevator arrives and he nudges both of them inside. It takes an embarrassing amount of time to remember the right security code, and even longer to punch it into the analog keypad correctly. The team is in the lab right now, probably talking about him, definitely blaming him. They no doubt expect him to come back and explain how this happened, as if he knows. As if he's just going to sit the kids in the corner while the adults have a team argument. No way. Look at them, they're in shock.

Tony walks them through the half-renovated living room. There's a table saw and a large rack of bullet-proof glass where the couch used to be. Plastic wrap covers the broken sections of the exterior wall, and the sheets flap loudly and curve in like sails on a old ship whenever the wind changes direction. Sawdust and nails cover the floor, and he has to pick both the godlings up just to keep their feet clean. At least the work crew finished repairing the concrete, that would be a mess to try and walk through. The hallway now has a starburst shape in a lighter color of grey near the master bedroom, and he could really do without the memento.

The boy's room is pretty much as they left it. Big, two twin beds, toys everywhere and a broken TV stand. Safe room door still wide open next to the trick bookshelf. He puts the brats down on Jori's bed and digs out some pajamas. Most of their things are in Malibu, so it's slim pickings. Old stuff with stains or holes or both. He's not sure why they didn't trash this crap.

By the time he has them dressed down, Jori's whining for his stuffed monkey and Tony shoves the first soft thing he finds at him, which is one of Fen's dog toys, its fur dirty and stiff with dried slobber. Nailed it. Dad of the year. He wraps them up in blankets because they're in shock and herds them to the master bedroom where they all got dressed for the party. Their tiny sneakers are scattered around where he left them earlier and he gathers them up.

"Let's get your shoes on." he says motioning for Fen to sit on the side of the bed while he gives Jori a boost. His voice is tight from him struggling to keep a calm veneer over his thoughts. He can't even take solace in his not-fiance's impending return, because Loki is probably going to go ballistic when he hears about Ultron. No safer place they can be. An impenetrable fortress in the sky. Sure. Safe from everyone but Tony himself.

"Come on, we gotta get you ready." Tony says, reaching for Jori's foot.

"Why?" Jori asks, jerking his feet into the blob of blankets. Tony paws around but the kid is fast, and pretty soon he's squirming backward out of the blanket until he's sitting in a ball in the middle of the bed.

"Dad's taking you back to Malibu." Tony says. "Come here."

"No!" Jori shouts, his squeaky kid voice ringing Tony's ears. "I wanna stay here!"

"Me too. I don't wanna go." Fen chimes in.

"Shut up and put your shoes on. This isn't a debate." Tony snaps.

Fenrir flinches at his tone, and Jori starts crying. Tony rubs at his eyes and crawls onto the bed. Wrestles shoes onto Jori's feet while the kid kicks and screams and has a meltdown.

"Stupid Jori. Always cries." Fen mumbles, and snatches his coat roughly from an accent chair where Tony tossed it earlier.

"Hey you got the verb right." Tony grunts, ignoring the actual content of Fen's statement. He fastens the last velcro strap on Jori's shoe and picks him up. Makes shushing noises in his ear and bounces him like a baby. Jori's like an infant when he's upset. Completely nonverbal, helpless, loud. So loud Tony doesn't hear Hela come in from the balcony or clop down the hallway in hir dress shoes.

"Tony!"

"In here." he calls, pulling out his emergency duffel and walking to his bedside table. He's not sure how long he'll be gone, but he doesn't feel good about leaving the Tesseract here.

Hela's slim figure fills the doorway, and Tony fumbles a bit with the cube. It's awkward to hold Jori, unzip the bag, and stuff the cube inside all at once. Hela opens hir mouth but Tony beats hir to the punch.

"Get your things. Dad's taking you to Malibu for a few days." he says. Hela runs to him, her face drawn and worried, and pulls Jori out of his arms. "Hey, what-"

"Shhh! Thor is here, he's right behind me-" Hela whispers, "He's upset with you."

"Stark!" Thor calls. The giant blond stalks in like he owns Tony's bedroom, still big and gleaming in his armor, and advances toward him with gruff purpose. Tony barely manages to zip the duffel closed before he's being lifted by the neck.

"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony gasps, his hands come up to grab Thor's forearm. For a blink Tony thinks he might actually squeeze. Instead he's pressed into the wall, the textured concrete digging into his nerves and sending shooting pain up and down his spine.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor growls, and shoves something in Tony's face. He flinches automatically, his eyes squinting shut in preparation for a blow, but nothing comes. Opening them, he sees an up close view of… a hairbrush?

Thor's hairbrush from the locker room. Empty but for a few strands of black, wavy hair.

Oh. Oh fuck.

"Where is he?" Thor demands.

"He's dead, you idiot. Put me down." Tony lies. The kids are shrieking and crying across the room, but it's just noise around the static filling Tony's ears.

"I trusted you." Thor says earnestly, like he's hurt, and fuck Tony actually feels bad. He didn't think Thor would care one way or the other, at least not about him. About Loki's betrayal, sure, but he and Thor are just friends from work.

"You know my reputation. It was just a fling. She needed a brush." Tony says, swinging an arm at Thor's head, which he blocks easily.

"Stop lying!" Thor shouts.

Tony kicks and struggles. Thor isn't squeezing, but he's still holding Tony's whole weight by his neck and it's getting hard to breath. Finally he lands a knee into Thor's groin and Point Break lets go. The wall scrapes along his back as Tony slides to the floor and he elbows Thor in the nose, shoves him back with the momentary stun that earns him.

"We have bigger problems than your shitty family right now." Tony says, "Where's the scepter?"

"He lost it is a hundred miles north." Hela growls, bracing Jori in her arms and standing in front of Fenrir in the back corner.

"Do not pretend to be ignorant. Your robot delivers it to Loki as we speak!" Thor says, "I will not allow anyone to threaten this realm, Stark, not even you."

"You think Loki and I are, what, in cahoots?" Tony asks, laughs, actually. As the idea registers, it's honestly kind of funny because from a twisted point of view Tony can see himself doing that. Somehow he never considered just how successful he and Loki could be as a dynamic super villain duo. He was too busy trying to build a gazebo out of cardboard puzzle pieces.

Thor steps into Tony's space again, but he doesn't back down. If Gun Show wants to act like a bully, Tony's not going to just roll over and let him get away with it.

"So Loki is alive. Where is he?" Thor says grimly, searching Tony's face.

"Get out of my tower." Tony says.

"Tell me!" Thor demands, his anger cracking into a hopeful kind of desperation that is so much worse. He grips Tony by the shoulders and begs him with his eyes, and that's when all hell breaks loose.

A blast of green energy explodes against Thor's shoulder and throws them apart, slams Thor into the far corner where he crashes into the accent chair, sending the kids scrambling to get out of the way. Simultaneously, the force throws Tony into his own bedside table. The solid wood is cracked, so Tony improvises a weapon out of a broken table leg and jumps to his feet.

Loki stands over Thor, his clothes rustling and hands sparking with restrained power. He is wearing his usual Midgard disguise, and with a ripple of magic it becomes his battle armor, horned headpiece and all. He cuts an intimidating figure, tall and pulsing with fury.

"Loki-" Thor says.

"Get out of this house!" Loki roars, "You are not welcome here, Odinson!"

"Loki, please, we must talk."

"You have said more than your share. You accuse Anthony of treason, and threaten my family, why should I listen?" Loki hisses.

"You know I must tell the Allfather-"

"The Allfather sleeps, fool. Six months he has slumbered while I warmed the throne, or did that escape your notice?" Loki sneers, glancing around as though in search of a weapon. His eyes land on the stack of gold bars serving as his bedside table and he snatches the topmost one with a lasso of magic, hurling it at Thor's face.

Hammer Time ducks the projectile, narrowly. His eyes are white and open with shock. Jori shrieks in Hela's arms, and Tony knows he and the kids should be clearing the blast zone but he's frozen. The last time these two fought they leveled a city block.

"Impossible. I have spent nights at his side-" Thor says.

"That was me, you oaf!" Loki spits, throwing another gold brick, which misses and embeds itself in the wall. "You were so eager for my council when it came with Odin's face, weren't you? The same words from my own tongue and you would call me liar, traitor, snake."

Loki punctuates each insult with another brick, and Tony jerks into action. The bars fly through the air and rebound unpredictably as Thor knocks them aside and sends them crashing into walls and furniture. Tony pushes Fen into the hallway and drags Hela by the arm. He can only watch as the two break out into a flurry of punches and throws, wincing as they destroy yet another room in his ruined penthouse.

"I have never said such a-" Thor shouts back, and Loki's voice cuts him off.

"You think it! You and all of Asgard judge me from your drawing rooms and then come to kiss my arse at banquet." Loki bellows, speaking rapidly and digging into the sharp consonants of each word, "You are the liar, Thor, you and every god who thinks themselves above malice and trickery."

Loki's wrath wanes as he finishes his rant, his fire dimming after he's spilled his guts. Tony can't see him, he's blocked by the doorway and Thor's bulk, but he hears him panting and knows from experience that Loki is shaking. After an outburst he crumbles, every time. Tony wants to go back in, but Thor is in the way and he doesn't know how Point Break would to react. He doesn't want to end up in another crater.

"Brother-" Thor pleads. It's the wrong thing to say, Tony can tell just by the way Thor flinches.

"I am not your brother!" Loki says, "I am a post for Odin to beat in your stead, and I tire of you living in this fantasy. Leave, and do not threaten my family again."

"I am sorry, Loki." Thor says, "You are right, I have only made this worse."

"Leave." Loki says coldly, and Tony doesn't need to see him to imagine the flinty hardness in his eyes or the tension in his jaw.

Hela steps behind Tony when the god of thunder turns to walk out, and Fenrir clutches at his pant leg. Tony steps in front, as if he could actually stop Thor from doing anything. Thor scans the line of them, which Tony assumes is a peanut gallery of fear and disdain. He looks embarrassed, humbled.

"I will not speak of this to anyone." Thor says quietly, directing it first to all of them, and then twisting to speak to Loki over his shoulder. "You have my word."

"You word means naught to me." Loki swears.

"Then take my actions instead. Your children need you." Thor says, "Once the scepter is found, I will sit on the throne."

Thor steps heavily past Tony and the munchkins and stalks into the living room. Hela steps into the bedroom with Jori in her arms, and Tony hears the soft sounds of Loki panting and sniffling as the elevator dings across the apartment.

Peaking in the room, he sees Loki hunched on the bed with Hela on one side and Fen awkwardly hugging him from between his lanky legs. Tony doesn't feel like he belongs in that room. There's a history playing out that he's not part of, that he knows nothing about and he's worried he would say the wrong thing. He runs for the elevator and just barely catches it with the toe of his oxford. Thor straightens up when the doors pop back open, and Tony steps in beside him. Waits for the doors to close and pushes the button for the Avengers main floor. There's a ping-pong happening between his life with the team and his life with Loki, and right now he's not sure which Tony he ought to be.

"No hard feelings, Point Break." Tony says, "You got a mean swing."

"Perhaps I should not have swung." Thor sighs, "My actions dishonor me."

It's a bit non-committal as far as admissions of regret go, but Tony knows the intricacies of royal apologies from Loki. Admitting dishonor is about as close to 'I'm sorry' as they get.

"You can make it up to me." Tony says offhand, and shifts his weight to his other foot. "That part about Odin beating Loki…"

Thor meets his gaze, jaw tight.

"It is not as he made it sound. Father never raised his hand."

Tony crosses his arms. "But?"

Thor looks away.

"It is unlawful to humble a crown prince. Tradition states that a younger sibling receives his punishments, so the future king learns to be responsible for his subjects."

Tradition. Charming. The elevator doors slide open and Tony steps out first. Puts his hands in his pockets and heads for the murmuring voices coming out of his lab.

"Well sure, guilt is great for controlling the older kid." Tony thinks out loud, "But what does the younger one learn?"

Briefly he imagines punishing Jori every time Fen acts out, which is often, and that's a mistake. It ties him in a tight knot of upset that has no outlet.

"He learns his brother is a fool." Thor says under his breath, and follows Tony into the bright lights of the lab.

Tony was right, of course, they blame him. They blame him for a solid fifteen minutes until he loses his patience and asks those arrogant, naive fucks what exactly they were doing to get ready for the next alien invasion. The silence that follows is pretty vindicating.

South Africa is terrible, full stop. Arms dealers, vibranium, and Hulk smashing a shopping center. Just a barrel of laughs. Standing next to Clint while he drives, Tony pulls out his phone and dials it the old fashioned way so it doesn't announce the recipient. He taps his fingers on the cockpit console while he waits through the fake sex noises that Loki recorded as his leave-a-message-greeting.

"Hey, Slugger," he says lightly, pretending he's leaving a message for Hela. "Don't think we're gonna make it home tonight, so, uh, don't leave the light on for me. If you want an update turn on Channel 9, I'm sure they'll be looping our story all night. Stay safe. I'll call when I can."

Mashing the holo closed, he slides the phone deep in his pocket and sighs. Hopes that Loki caught the coded messages.

"We're about two hundred miles out." Barton announces.

"Out from where?" Tony asks.

"Safe house." Barton says. Knowing Hawkeye, Tony assumes it's an abandoned missile silo with no power and a porta-john for the bathroom.

Running water it may have, but the "safe house" still ought to be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. It's a triple threat of things that make Tony want to eat bricks. For one thing, there's nature everywhere, for another the house has no technology newer than a Pez dispenser. And finally, when Tony steps outside for a discrete call to Loki, he eats a hefty serving of crow compliments of Captain America instead. He is about to try out his new Aesir strength on the Capsicle when Fury steps in for the least inspiring pep talk of Tony's life, and by the time he escapes the barn he really is at the end of his rope. Oh well, he told Loki to call him on the secure line at nine anyway, and it's eight forty-five.

The sky is pink and orange, and the woods are droning with the chirps of cicadas like a pretentious indie movie. Trudging back up the hill, he finds a big tree and stands behind it, pulls the abomination phone out of his pocket and flicks the power supply switch. The light turns green, but the connection light is red and blinking. The signal needs calibration.

Tony fumbles for his locket and slips the chain over his ears, clicks the clasp and pries the halves apart. The dial has three lines of coordinates. One for him, one for Loki, and one that marks the distance between. Right now it's hovering around three thousand miles. Most days it's more like five hundred thousand light-years, so that's better than usual. Tony adjusts the matching dials on the side of the phone, does the can-you-hear-me-now walk until the red light goes solid. And then the mobile beeps.

There is a god, and he's calling Tony. Hammering the accept button, he presses the speaker to his ear and waits. There's a delay so severe that the previous models fried before they could even say hello, he estimates around forty five seconds. Finally, he hears something. It's faint, distorted. The reception morphs Loki's voice into a dubstep remix of a HAM radio, but it's him. Just the familiar cadence of his speech and the low timber in his vowels loosens the tension in Tony's jaw and stops his spiraling thoughts.

"How are you?" the contorted replication of Loki's voice asks.

"Three." Tony says, "How are you?"

More waiting. More spiraling thoughts. Tony hates doing nothing. He can't even pace or it screws up the signal, he just has to hang motionless until the phone either breaks or the call drops. He doesn't believe for a second that they will actually get to finish their conversation, because there's no way this hunk of junk lasts longer than a few minutes. Which, with the delay, is no time at all.

"Are you alone?" Loki asks, and Tony almost doesn't understand, it's so choppy and corrupted. Getting worse fast.

Tony looks around, finding that he almost doesn't care anymore. He's so tired of hiding this, and by now everyone knows but the Capcicle. Thor isn't even here. He fibs.

"Yes. Are you free? Can you come to me?" Tony asks, doesn't even think to specify his location. His mind is locked on the idea of having someone solid beside him. Bugs are probably nesting in his hair by now, he's itchy all over and really tired of being in this sweaty borrowed flannel. Hawkeye's rugrats are too quiet and too normal, and they make him miss the insanity waiting for him at home.

The interval when Loki's response should arrive passes and he thinks Loki's phone must have caught fire before his answer came through. His stomach sinks and he sighs, walks around the tree to go back to the house. And then runs into a solid chest, and feels arms wrap around his torso. He very nearly attacks him, contrives a dozen bad excuses for why he's sneaking around the woods, and then stops himself.

Loki's smooth voice burrows softly in his ear. "Where are we?"

"Safehouse. Kentucky, I think."

"You are indeed on the news again."

"Not my usual story." Tony sighs, "Guess I'm a super villain now."

"Finally, my secret prison fantasy can be actualized." Loki drawls, walking Tony back around the tree and out of sight. He's Jotun, Tony realizes, he barely noticed in the low light, but his fingers burn where they touch him.

Tony leans against the trunk. Tosses the phone to the ground and reels Loki in as close as he can. Normally holding him is like cuddling a porcupine, he's all bones and muscle and nowhere soft to put your head, but tonight he's bundled in a thick-knit cardigan and it makes him about eighty percent more hug-able than usual. The sweater softens his edges and brings with him the scents of a quiet night in Malibu. Tony fiddles with the chunky black buttons and inhales. There's a certain kind of perfume Loki puts on the curtains, and he smells like that with a hint of ash from the fire pit.

"You disappeared." Loki says.

"Times like that, you need space." Tony replies.

Loki nods. "I thought you were upset with me. For losing my temper."

Tony chuckles, "Are you kidding? That was the sexiest you've ever been."

Loki breathes out a deep laugh and slumps so his head rests on Tony's shoulder. Tony cups the back of his neck, force of habit.

"And now I feel foolish for worrying." Loki huffs, then stiffens, pulls back to study Tony's face, "You are distressed."

"Well it's-" Tony sighs, "Long day. Really long day."

Loki looks down and pushes up the sleeve of his cardigan, unbuttons his shirt cuff and shoves it up to his elbow. Strong fingers wrap around Tony's hand and place his palm on the underside of Loki's bare wrist where white lines stretch from his pulse point and up. He presses Tony's hand harder into his skin, and his eyebrows pinch.

"Something is not right with you. Were you hexed?"

"Shown." Tony corrects, and Loki drops his hand. Steps backward.

"You touched the Stone?"

The look chills Tony, the undisguised fear meeting his own shredded confidence and making an escalating unease pass between them back and forth. He scrapes at what is left of his rational mind for an explanation of what the hell Wanda Maximov did.

"There's a girl that got powers from it." Tony says, rubs his face and cuts to the chase. "I know what you meant now, about the visions."

"It must be some trick, the stones do not work remotely." Loki says.

"There was no trick, I saw it." Tony says, meeting Loki's eyes. Probably more than anyone else, he knows Loki will understand. That wasn't a nightmare, or PTSD, or an illusion, it was the truth. Cold, painful fact. "We lose, Lokes. Doesn't matter what I do, we lose."

Loki studies him, one of his searching looks that make Tony feel like he's under a microscope and some elemental secret of life is swimming in his cytoplasm. He shuffles back into Tony's space and kisses his neck. Long pianist fingers start to undo his belt and it feels like a violation. Tony doesn't want to reject him and see his eyes dim into mistrust and confusion, but this isn't what he needs from Loki.

"I don't think I can get it up right now…" Tony says, but the button of his pants is already open. Loki bites his neck and it isn't sexy, it just stings. Tony nudges his hands away and Loki sighs into the unpleasant wet spot on his neck. Drops to his knees and lines his face up. Tony's stomach turns.

"Stop, stop. You hate that-"

"I don't know how else to comfort you." Loki says, looking up at him. "Please, sir."

Tony winces, closes his belt. "The fuck kind of porn have you been watching?"

Loki blanches, and Tony cuts him off. He can sense a completely literal Asgardian answer on the way and he doesn't actually want to hear it. The skin under his clothes feels like it's reaching out for Loki, like he had all he needed until the two of them started talking, and now the comfort of contact is gone.

"You know what, nevermind." Tony says, "Just-"

"What do you need?" Loki asks, confused.

Tony sighs, sits down between the tree and Loki and tries to ignore the roots digging into his ass.

"If we lose, then what's the point of this?" Tony asks.

Loki chews the inside of his cheek, and meets Tony's eyes.

"The point… I suppose the point is that we will live our final days in the best of company. Attempting to stall the end." Loki says, "Is that not enough?"

"No." Tony says. "No. I want a life with you. A whole one."

"You have it." Loki says, snatching Tony's hand and squeezing. "Come now, you are being ridiculous. This is a child's prank."

Tony feels pinned. Suddenly he needs space. He pulls his hand away and stumbles to his feet. Paces a line toward the house and back.

"You're not listening!" Tony groans, scratching his beard. Son of a bitch, they've come full circle. "I'm telling you, it was real. It was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on."

"I am listening, idiot!" Loki hisses, following Tony on his anxious loops, "I hear a witless fool allowing himself to be demoralized and manipulated by a glowing rock."

"I am not-"

"You are!" Loki says, "How pathetically you moan your sorry fate while your creation wreaks havoc. This is not the man I allied with. Get up and do something."

"Like what, genius? Ultron's everywhere. He's in the net, his clones have clones. I designed him, okay, he's perfect. His code isn't hackable."

"Then why has he not yet succeeded?" Loki demands.

Tony stops, inside and out, so suddenly that Loki actually bumps into him. It's a good point. Yesterday the team determined that something was blocking Ultron from accessing nuclear codes, an unknown ally. Poking around the Avengers servers proved Ultron could cover his tracks, but maybe this third party wouldn't be so invisible? Maybe if Tony pretended to be Ultron, pretended to try and decrypt the codes, the ally would show themselves? A hand comes to his chin and breaks his concentration, and when he turns his attention back to the real world there's a cheeky smile waiting for him.

"Better?" Loki asks, arching a brow. A little flush at the ears from the risk of his gambit. No need, Tony fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

The kiss he gives Loki feels like coming home. Like the touch of his palms over Loki's jaw is him kicking his shoes off after a long day, and the first brush of lips is him shaking off his coat and hanging it on the hook. He pulls Loki down fast enough that the god stumbles and has to brace himself with a hand on Tony's hip, and he enjoys the feeling of supporting him. Loki tilts his head further aside as though to deepen the kiss and Tony withdraws, needs to look him in the eye and run that stray lock of hair behind his ear.

"When did you get so smooth?" he smirks.

Loki tilts his head and grins back. "I used to be so daring all the time. You've seen nothing yet."

Something shifts in his face after that, his gaze going far away and unfocused. Reflexively, his fingers twitch and an orb of green energy rises from his palm. The haze solidifies into a model of a bedroom with two beds, one of them stirring as a child sits up and looks around.

"Duty calls." Tony says, moving to run his thumb up Loki's exposed forearm. It's a treat to have him blue like this, so casually. Loki groans, and flicks his eyes closed.

"I love you." Loki says softly. Tony kisses him, a quick goodbye peck. Grips his arm and feels his pulse pick up, his skin tingle. It's rare thing for them to say it like this, point blank.

"I love you." he says.

When Loki disappears he doesn't feel unmoored or alone. Loki is on Earth, he has wards on all his loved ones, and he just went to extreme lengths to get Tony working again. He feels like everywhere he goes there will be an invisible guard dog watching from the shadows, waiting to jump to his defense at a moment's notice. He feels invincible.


	11. Chapter 11

_Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire, and that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out. All they want is to live their lives in peace, and that's not gonna happen today. But we can do our best to protect them, and we can get the job done. We find out what Ultron's been building, we find Romanov, and we clear the field. Keep the fight between us._

 _Ultron thinks we're monsters. That we are what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating him. It's about whether he's right._

FRIDAY came into existence three weeks after Loki faked his death. It was pathetic, honestly. A copy of Jarvis's source code without his memory banks and a voice pack stitched together from clips of Loki speaking in security footage. For some fucked up reason Tony thought it would be comforting to have a facsimile of Loki talking in his ear. The first time he and FRIDAY spoke Tony didn't get out of bed for two days, and Jarvis quietly changed the code without his permission. Maybe it's the ironic reversal of Loki being alive while Jarvis is dead, but when he's sorting through his backup programs, FRIDAY's disc calls to him. The lilting Irish accent doesn't resemble anyone he's known, but the program itself is a hefty reminder of why he's walking into fire.

Digital beeps turn into fake sex noises in his ear, and he figures it's only natural that Loki would be asleep at two in the morning. Anything Tony tells him will just fuel his anxiety, so the message is spare.

"Hey Slugger, got some news for you." he murmurs, "We found Ultron. He's waiting for us. Sokovia, of course. Should be quick. Tell the biters I said hi, and, uh-"

Tony swallows, shifts the phone a little higher against his ear. The Tesseract pulses in his left hand and casts haunting blue shadows on his breastplate.

"Listen, I know we already talked about this but-"

Steve calls for the team to load up from the next room, and Quicksilver walks past the server room door. Gives him some really annoying side-eye. Tony sighs.

"Fuck it, I'll ask you when I get back. I gotta go." Tony goes to hang up, and then the neurotic parent in the back of his mind brings the phone back to his ear, "Oh, and Fen has horn rash again. The itch creme is on the kitchen counter. You gotta watch him, Lokes, he's getting sneaky with the scratching."

"Tony?" Steve calls faintly.

"You coming, Stark?" Clint echoes.

"So, uh, yeah, I'll see you soon." Tony says, and taps the red icon to end the call. Slides the holo screen closed and tucks it away. The extra layer of chest armor is bulky, and definitely not his favorite addition to Iron Man, but it does the job. The Tesseract fits under the circular window, and when the blue light shines through it looks the same as an arc reactor.

"I'll catch up." Tony yells back, "Anyone else want a burger? I'm starving."

"What do you have Stark?" Rogers asks over the comms.

"Nothing good. A way to blow up the city." Tony says, "That'll keep it from impacting the surface. If you guys can get clear."

"I asked for a solution, not an escape plan."

God, but this is why he hates Steve Rogers. Zero compromise, ever. Nevermind that this rock is half a mile from creating global extinction, or that it's not physically possible to prevent the impact without destroying the missile. Doesn't matter, Rogers expects Tony to just pull a miracle out of his ass. While fighting a robot army.

"Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're gonna have to make a choice." Tony grunts, the thin air and G forces making him dizzy as he rockets around the floating island. Turns out Romanov has his back, which might just validate his suspicion that they are witnessing the end of the world.

"Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock…" she says.

"I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it." Steve says.

"I didn't say we should leave." Natasha says, "There are worse ways to go. Besides, where else am I going to get a view like this?"

"The view is indeed impressive, Ms. Romanov." An aristocratic voice interjects, a hum of static erupting into Tony's earpiece while his pulse thumps in his chest. "But there is always room for improvement."

A helicarrier materializes out of stealth, two hundred yards ahead. Rising quickly. A silver blur circles the starboard side, covering it from enemy fire, and Tony grins at the sight of Rhodey kicking ass.

"Nice, right?" Nick Fury's voice chimes in. "Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends."

"Was that… Loki?" Steve asks.

"You are correct, sir." Loki says, and this time it isn't over the earpieces, it's shouted directly from his lips as he rides atop the first of a fleet of rescue shuttles. "Behold, your savior is here!"

"Stark, you son of a bitch." Rogers swears. "Any other secrets you'd like to share with the class?"

"My goodness, Captain, such language." Loki teases, "You shall have to put a coin in the swear jar."

"This sounds like a conversation for later, gentlemen." Hill says.

"Right you are." Loki says, and splits into about twenty clones, all smirking gamely and strutting around in their fetching black tactical suits. Barking instructions at people and getting them into orderly lines.

"You couldn't let me hog all the glory, could you?" Tony jokes, corkscrewing to the bottom side of the floating rock to get a look at the propulsion system. It's big, but it's not magic and that's a relief.

"Would you believe it was actually Miss Potts who insisted?" Loki says, "Evidently, between the two of us, I am the voice of reason."

"Clearly Miss Potts does not know you very well." Tony replies, over the sound of Loki cackling in his ear.

"Can you two flirt on your own channel?" Rhodey groans, "I've getting hives."

Tony smirks, and gets to work rigging the biggest bomb of his life.

"Man down." Clint grunts over the comms, "Repeat. Quicksilver is down."

Wanda screams over the comms, and Tony can't help it. He is a parent, his brain has been conditioned to run towards screaming children. They have time, he can make it. He guns the jets. The little witch is not hard to find, her power is uncontained, crackling with energy and gushing red. Pietro's body is a bullet-ridden mess at her feet, and he feels her pain like an earthquake rumbling.

All he sees is Hela, chained to a chair on a pile of bones and screaming for Lady Death to give her mercy. Tony knows a few things about dying after Niflheim, the first of them being that Lady Death is patient, she doesn't care whether she gets you now or later. The bell tolls for everyone some day.

Today isn't Pietro's day. He's a punk, a kid. Tony isn't even sure if the witch can do what he needs her to, but he has to try. The vision haunts him every moment. His friends dying, Loki bleeding, telling Tony he could have saved him, if only he did more. If only they hadn't fought with a weapon left in the locker.

This is what they call a point of no return. Do or don't. It isn't hard, you just say _I want_ and fill in the blank. Or the opposite, in this case. Tony taps open the front of his suit and pulls out the Tesseract. Dives to ground level at mach 2.

"Catch!" he shouts, sliding into a fast landing in a rain of sparks and tossing the Tesseract like a softball. Wanda has quick reflexes, he'll give her that.

"What is this?" she asks, the cube levitating in front of her face and lighting up her crazy eyes.

Tony retracts his helmet. Pulls out his earpiece and snaps it in half. He figures he has about thirty seconds before Loki notices the radio silence. Should be long enough. Hopefully. This girl is dangerous, and a kid, and scared shitless. She's in a mountain of grownup trouble and the only bargaining chip they have to control her is a cooling corpse.

"That's a cube. A regular solid made of six congruent and co-linear squares. If my not-fiancé told me the truth, which admittedly is a coin toss on any given day, it contains a sentient blob of ancient parasitic snot that alters reality." Tony says blandly.

He lets her absorb that for a second, since there will be a test.

"And I intent to alter your reality with it." he continues. Directs her gaze to Pietro's body with a nod of his head, "All you gotta do is open the box. Pretty please. With sugar on top."

Wanda's slim fingers do their come hither thing, and although she looks about as freaked out as Pandora probably did opening her own box of despair, it only takes her a few seconds to unfold the cube into a six sectioned cross and reveal the surging waves of blood red within.

Which is precisely when Loki appears. Yeah, he probably should have left out the bit about hexahedron geometry. That totally wasn't necessary.

"Anthony!" he shouts, and Tony's head whips on its own. Its Loki, he isn't capable of ignoring him. His face breaks something in Tony. It's pained, uncovered, terrible.

The anger he expects, and the shock, even the betrayal. They have been sliding towards this since Loki put the cube in the fun drawer and walked out of his life. Thinking of it that way makes him sound bitter, but he isn't. It's not like that, the fact is just relevant. It's related to how he and Loki have to straddle this line between what they want and what has to happen for them to stay alive.

There is a fantasy land in Tony's head. A place where people fall in love at first sight, and orgasm simultaneously, and reach a terminal point in their relationship at which all problems resolve and they live happily ever after. In that mythical imaginary world, Loki would always come first. But they don't live there. They live in this fucked up reality where trash piles on top of trash until the whole planet is garbage like that Wall-E movie that Jori's obsessed with.

The anger, shock, and betrayal, Tony expects, but he isn't prepared for the hurt. For the way Loki's face pulls itself apart, and the sharp white of his teeth as he screams open mouthed and ugly. The answering stab of regret and guilt in his own chest catches him with the suddenness of an arrow to the back. Loki's face slacks into an expression of open fear, a silent plea of _not again not you not like this_ , he bores into Tony's eyes until tendrils of red stretch into the air and obscure them from each other.

He senses more than sees Loki leap forward, knows already that this has become a race. Two lovers running for the abyss, competing to save each other. To not be the one left alive after the Aether devours his mate. Tony guns it, looping over the red cloud and firing a repulsor at full power. It catches Loki in the shoulder and throws him back. Sends him crashing and furious into a crumbled fountain.

Tony lands and dashes out of his suit, throws himself defenseless at the red mist and thinks take me, _fucking bring it you piece of shit._ The cloud runs through him, cutting through his pores like sand through a sift. Scents overwhelm him. Ozone and gasoline, infected wounds and grave dirt. It purrs and swoops, circles lazily like an apex predator that has time to play with its food. His body tenses like it knows it's about to be assaulted, and then the cloud pries his mouth open and plunges. It rips through all his barriers, pours all the information in existence into his brain all at once, and spreads itself like a body curling inside a sleeping bag. There isn't a scrap of him that hasn't been touched and changed, from his fingernails to the inside of his spine. The stone thumps with a power that feels like cruel laughter, and finally the last dregs pass Tony's lips so he can scream. There is nothing in his vision but red, he's blind and dizzy and utterly invaded, claimed by this bottomless void.

"Tony!" Loki shouts. It's ragged, gut shredding, and muffled by the stone like he is hearing it underwater, submerged in a bathtub full of red. He takes one shakey footstep towards that awful, destroyed voice, and he falls.

He's falling. Falling, falling. Spinning through a red writhing sea and-

 _-young. He's so young his tendons feel like jello. His face is baby smooth. The bathtub is cold but his blood is hot, it's unnaturally warm and gushing. He's alone, he's so alone. There's no one. Everyone at MIT is five years older and they think he's a freak. He's completely alone now that his parents are-_

-no, that's not right. He wasn't alone, that isn't true. He had Rhodey. It was hard, but he had someone, he was never like this because-

 _-his parents are dead and he has no one. There are eight board members downstairs and they all want to buy him out while he's shocked and scared and hasn't talked to a lawyer. They think he's stupid, but he isn't stupid, he knows there's no point in fighting. There's nothing for him now so he should just-_

-leave. He needs to get out of here, go somewhere else, somewhere better. He wants-

 _-Loki. Fucking Christ, he's so big. So fucking big and plowing Tony's ass. Oh fuck, oh shit, it's too much. Loki is gorgeous and strong and he's ripping a knife across Tony's throat. He's fucking Tony raw while he bleeds to death and calling him a gullible fool. The last thing he hears as he blacks out is Loki's cruel laughter that-_

-does not sound like that anymore. His Loki isn't some murderous psychopath, he's broken. He can be more he's-

 _-on a gleaming crystal bridge with his cape whipping around him like the hero Tony always knew he could be. He's deadly and magnificent and taking down six undead Einherjar at a time while Tony flails in a turbulent sea, trying to stay afloat. Fenrir jumps after him and he thinks-_

-thank fuck. Good boy. Put Pops in your mouth and carry him back up to Dad, just put your jaws around and-

 _-sink in. Puncture him straight through with a dull fang and rip him limb from limb while Loki meets his brother on the bridge and doesn't look down, doesn't notice Tony getting eaten alive-_

-and well, he's alive and well and everything is fine. Everything is just fine in this lovely, safe place where-

 _-he can breathe. Finally he can lay his head in Pepper's lap and shut his eyes. Can open himself up to her kiss and drink her down without imagining her exploding and-_

-dumping him. Pepper dumped him, that's how it happened. They were bad for each other, they agreed it was for the best. He's with Loki now, he's with-

 _-Pepper and the world is finally safe. His A.I. will murder the aliens the second they show their ugly mugs on his planet, and he doesn't give a fuck how many people had to die to accomplish it. His family will be safe under Project Insight's watchful-_

-eye. That's it, he's a watcher, he's not any of these people. These are real but they aren't him. He's inside the Reality Stone and he's falling, stretching, collapsing, birthing-

 _-new life. She's crying and shaking and half insane with agony. Fucking worthless epidural, what's even the fucking point if she can still feel this fucking frost giant bursting out of her. Fucking stupid Loki, wanting to keep it. Never again. She is never doing this for him again, that worthless piece of-_

-shit. Holy shit, what the fuck. No man is meant to feel that, what the fuck. How many versions of them are there? Jesus fuck-

 _-does Steve Rogers live up to the legend. Blond, tan, built like a Dorito, and so very sincere with his baby blues. Looking at Tony like he's a blushing virgin and unzipping his dad slacks. At last, it's time, he finally gets to see if half a decade of beating off to the Captain America poster in college measures up to the hype. Big, patriotic hands tug down the elastic and wow-_

\- this thing needs an interface. Tony did not need to see that. Seriously, him and Rogers? That is just preposterous. He's starting to get a handle on the feeling of plummeting, starting to get some awareness of the original him that's in the center-

 _-of the stage, playing to the crowd and dying, dying, dying inside. Walking dead, Yinsen said, yeah that's what he is. Tony just traded one painful death for another. So why the fuck not piss on stage, huh? Who the hell's gonna stop him? He gave Loki the company, and that's-_

-a new one. Loki as his personal assistant? He has to laugh at that. Loki making him coffee in a pencil skirt. Come on, that's hilarious. Okay, he can control this somehow. There's a kind of subconscious trigger to these memories, which means all he has to do is guide them, think of what he wants to see. Loki. Not insane or lost or preoccupied just-

 _-his personal version of Loki. No one else's. This gilded monarch belongs to him, and now everyone knows it. Odin puts the consort's crown on Tony's head and he stands tall beside Loki, weaves a hand into his hand and swears to honor, to protect, to advise, and to guide, to be the confidante and the judge as no other in Asgard has authority to do. Loki murmurs his accordance and they turn to share a kiss. He meets Loki's green, glassy eyes and they are so beautiful, god Tony forgot-_

-what a possessive fuck he is. That trigger phrase could send him to literally any version of the world where he and Loki date. This is impossible. It's so chaotic. His whole life trained him to push the limits of possibility, and now there are no limits and so nothing means anything. No context, just the confirmation of a limitless data set. Whatever he imagines the stone will make real, no matter how bizarre. And shit, how long has he been falling? He had a goal when he started, in a timeline that he needs to return to. A reality where-

-the sky is very blue, and the Earth is disappearing under him. Sokovia is a meteor, and it could crash down any minute. Gun fire and scraping metal surround him in a cacophonous blur of bodies and heat and Tony is standing in the center of the violence.

Red lances out of him in all directions and blows robots around like crash test dummies. By the time they hit the ground they actually are crash test dummies, their bodies plastic and covered in motion capture reticles and Tony stares at the perimeter of yellow limbs. There's no time to panic because another wave of bots come right after and they melt into ferrous liquid when the ground underneath them turns to lava.

That scares him, and so the lava cools to igneous rock. He's starting to get his bearings when three more bots come at him and spires of obsidian shoot upward and impale them from pelvis to processor. Tony flinches, and two bots to his left mimic the motion, their chests shearing away from their spinal structures and crumbling to piles of scrap. There are voices all around him but they sound like adults in Charlie Brown, muffled and indistinct.

There is a gap in the enemy line in front of him so he steps forward, rolls his shoulders and feels raw, untamed power unfurl and stalk down his arms, creep out to his fingers. His right foot meets a dead bot's severed head and he punts it into a distant mob. A hazy memory of his best selling bomb comes to mind and he thinks it would look awfully pretty exploding out of the severed head. It does indeed look impressive, because Tony Stark makes quality shit, but it also blows out his ear drums and knocks him back twenty feet. Takes down at least fifty bots though, so it's alright. Better than alright, it's intoxicating, the power of it. The effortless application of destructive force.

A bot comes up behind him and he slices it like a deviled egg with nothing but a reflexive thought. One second it's about to blow his head off, and the next it's a pile of inch thick cross sections. He wonders if he can do that to two at once, and so he does. Then three. Then eight. Ouch, okay, too many. The host's brain is organic, it cannot process that much input.

Too many options, too much stimulus. Limits, that's right, the parasite needs constraints. Without boundaries there is no meaning, no context, just infinite possibilities. He needs an interface.

A red visor blinks into existence, a rounded band across his eyes that highlights targets and groups them into clusters. How about a targeting system, area of effect indicators and a multiplication algorithm. Blue circles appear over the ground, warped to match the perspective of the landscape, tailored to the limits of the human eye. They move automatically with his attention, and grow and shrink as he considers which targets to hit. Like a video game, but with about ten million different buttons to push.

The notion of a video game codifies the display and the layout gets cleaner, snaps into the visual style of Fenrir's favorite sci-fi shooter. Radial menus appear around his hands and Tony grins, his body thrumming with banked fire. The blue indicator encircles a crowd of six bots and he puts his right hand over his left, pulls them apart in a harsh slicing motion and the cluster of bots all simultaneously break apart at the knees. It feels incredible, but he can do better. He's a motherfucking genius inventor with access to unrestrained variation. Forty years of sleepless nights spent wrestling his tireless creativity can finally pay dividends.

I want my suit, he thinks, and then he is already wearing it. Could have been wearing it the whole time. Flying above the horde of robots, he turns his repulsors into dark matter beams and eviscerates them down to the atomic level, then reconstructs the ions into unstable acid and watches it dissolve the next wave into corroded vibranium dust. He follows a trail of shredded bots and looks for the boy with the bullets in his blood.

Pietro's body is pumped full of lead, a mess of holes like swiss cheese, and it's so easy to fix that it doesn't even feel like a miracle. He sees the bullets reversing their path, healthy skin filling in the space, and the arrogant punk is good as new. Good as new-

and still dead. Restored but hollow, no soul. Beyond the power of his stone. He can't even register whether that should make him feel a certain way, can't even place why it was so important in the first place. The noises in his ear get louder but no more comprehensible, he is outside of time and space, riding high on pure energy.

He drops the boy on the rescue shuttle, and then it's suddenly very quiet. His skin itches under the suit, deep pain pressing up from the skin of his arms, the back of his head, the middle of his ribs. The stillness doesn't make sense to him, and his vision tunnels on whatever is directly in front of him.

Scared victims are pressing in around him and agents are running around waving their arms and shouting instructions, and Tony needs to get away. It's too much. His brain is still rattling off every conceivable way to dismantle a body to its component parts. Dangerous, he realizes, he is dangerous. Capable of killing everyone on this shuttle with a stray thought.

The battle makes more sense, the basic thrill of power, release, decimation, rebirth. He is Kali, Shiva, Dante's Inferno. Change through destruction in a white-hot crucible. The fight rages within him as much as without and he rides a high of deconstruction, induction, and implosion until there's nothing left to fight. The world is quiet and still and he feels cut loose, confused, terrified, until gravity reverses and his stomach floats inside his ribs and the chaos feels like home. The end, the poetry of the meteor. That is what the parasite longs for, and caught in this altered state he accepts his fate. He pants, exhausted, ribs burning with agony, and stares down at a metal body between his feet.

It's intact, and that upsets him. It is supposed to be broken. He makes it stand up and the carcass twitches and shambles to a parade rest, feet shoulder width apart and arms clasped at its back. It turns to granite, then stone, then dust, and then he turns the soil around it to water and transmutes the mud, sand, and water into glass. It isn't difficult, it just takes a little force.

Once the structure is crystalline it only takes a tiny shifting of particles to make it quartz, and onyx, and ruby, and ice. Heat melts the ice and an infusion of iron makes the water positively charged. A magnetic field six feet above makes it rise up in dancing stalagmites and a slight tilt of the field makes it swirl like a hurricane. Opposing magnetism below turns it into a rotating sphere, and that's it, that's Earth. A vulnerable bubble of water sprinkled with carbon, oxygen, and the building blocks of life.

He freezes it and swaps the magnetic fields, removes the positive counterbalance and watches it plummet into the ground and shatter into a thousand tiny fragments.

"Mjolnir!" someone calls behind him and he can't look away from the mess he's made. He still can't grasp the strange noises other humans make, this one only registers because it comes from his person, from the pet frost giant the host is so fond of. His body feels wrong inside his suit. The pain is becoming unbearable.

The pile of ice melts into water, which mixes into mud and he pulls it upwards in tentacle-like strands. They wrap around one another to form bones and cords of muscle, and eventually a human shape with generic undefined features. Mud-skin wraps around the body, and then peels back in one inch strips while the man's insides bloom into a cracked, brown carnation.

"Anthony, stop. Mjolnir, mjolnir, please, stop."

Arms wrap around Tony's waist and he almost peels the skin off of them. Almost pulls them into thread and weaves them into carbon fiber. Lips kiss the back of his neck and his body knows this body. His muscles relax without his permission. The parasite urges him to destroy and his lizard brain says no. Mjolnir means stop. We stop whatever we are doing and we listen.

"We need to go." Loki says, his voice shaky and frantic, fingers pulling at Tony's chest plate. "The city is falling, we must hurry."

Suddenly words make sense. The red leaves his vision, and he's in the driver's seat of his mind. His legs give out, his lungs won't inhale. The city is falling, holy fuck, the city is falling. His legs give out and Loki catches him.

"What are you doing? Come." Loki growls.

"Can't-" Tony gasps, the air is thin. It's like breathing helium from a balloon, and his ribs scream with every tiny spasm.

"By your own claim, you can do anything." Loki says forcefully, and grab's Tony's hands, tries to rotate him and pick him up in a fireman's carry but Tony resists. Turns his head away so he doesn't see any part of Loki.

"Stop, Loki, I'm not safe. Can't even think-"

"Then don't." Loki spits. With a grunt he lifts Tony onto his back, suit and all, and swears passionately in Aesir. "Damned imbecile, for once in your sorry life don't do anything."

Tony stares at the ground and panics. Thoughts threaten to solidify into ideas and the more he tries not to think about them the more they press at his control. He tries thinking about nothing, but then dumb movie quotes fill the silence. Next he tries singing his favorite songs in his head, but the Aether plays the tracks out loud with Tony's voice singing like bad karaoke. Loki huffs.

"Close your eyes." he says, "Resistance generates reciprocal force. Allow your thoughts to wander and soon enough they shall quiet on their own."

Tony does, or tries to. His wandering thoughts don't seem to run out the way they are supposed to. Listening to Loki's steps works better. They don't have any inherent meaning or give him further ideas, they just are. Just a sound with a cadence that roughly matches his pained breathing.

"I'm bad at this." Tony complains after half a minute or so.

"You will improve." Loki says. Oddly firm, assured, "You have many years yet to squabble with me."

"I'd rather we just talked." Tony confesses. Loki's steps falter. It's unnaturally quiet, and the wind has stilled somehow. Falling debris is frozen in midair and he doesn't know if he is doing that or if time has simply stopped functioning. The line of Loki's shoulders under Tony slumps.

"I wish we had." he says, and it sounds wrong. Wistful. Warped like a funhouse mirror. Loki starts to walk again, faster. "Have faith in me. I am trying, although I do not often succeed."

Vertigo cuts off whatever Tony might has said. Loki puts him on his feet and firm hands direct him to a seat in the cockpit where prying eyes can't reach, and he hears the sound of tearing fabric. His eyes start to slide open, but Loki lays a hand over them. Scratchy linen comes over his nose and cheeks and Loki ties the ends together. It's kind of a relief. He was getting tired of holding his eyes shut.

"I must aid the team in destroying the city." Loki says, "Leave that on. It will be very bad if you lose control."

"So what, you want me to sit here?"

"Yes. In fact, you must stay here. It will be catastrophically bad if you don't." Loki says, and Tony is sure now. There is a song in his gut and it's resonating, _wrong wrong wrong wrong._

"You're leaving?" Tony asks, gasping around his internal wounds.

"I will return." Loki says.

Loki takes a step back, and Tony surges forward. Commit or regret. Act now or lose. He reaches blindly with everything he has left and clings to Loki's coat.

"Who are you?" he demands.

"I am Loki." The lack of insult or jest seals it.

"Not my Loki."

"Yes and no." the man whispers, and the blindfold denies Tony any warning that he is about to be kissed. Not-Loki's lips are chapped, cracked dry, and there's a touch of cold metal on one side. Woah, he has a lip ring. There's a five gallon bucket full of reasons this isn't ethical or advisable behavior, but Tony's a slut. Even in the middle of a war zone with the city rising into the atmosphere and a strong suspicion that he's cheating on his fiancé with himself, he licks his way in Loki's mouth and makes it good. Makes him shiver, and sucks on the lip ring just to feel what it's like. Loki groans, even though it's probably uncomfortable to have your piercings pulled and chewed on. Tony wouldn't know, he's never had any.

"I'm so sorry, that was wrong. I should not take advantage-" Loki rasps.

Huh, this Loki understands consent. Wonders never cease.

"Who are you, really?" Tony asks.

"I am not the only me, and you are not the only you. We are all the same, and all different."

"Then, what's 'different' about you?" Tony asks. Not-Loki's hair tickles his nose, and he brushes it aside. Follows it up to the man's face and holds it like he's held Loki's a thousand times. The man's breathing is very loud, and very controlled.

"I am the one that saves you today. As I failed to do the first time." Loki says. "And now that I've done it, I suspect I shall cease to exist. You need not waste your affection on me."

"Idiot." Tony says with conviction, "I love every version of you I can get my hands on."

Not-Loki sniffles, lets out a horrible near-silent cry. Tears slide from his face to Tony's and Loki kisses him again. Not moving or caressing, just a press of warmth. If not for the lip ring, Tony would never know the difference.

"Thank you." Loki sobs, breaking the kiss and pressing his face into the tattered blindfold and the bottom half of Tony's cheek. "Thank you."

And then he disappears. There's no shift of air, or scent of ozone, or dust of cool mist. He just stops existing. Noise explodes all around him. Life suddenly living once more. The pilot he did not notice in the chair next to him starts talking over a radio, calling for permission to dock. The people in the cabin scream as the downward pressure of gravity returns, and Tony's implants go back to crawling out of his skin.

 _Don't,_ he thinks, _I need those. Those are part of us._ And everything settles, calms to a dull sting of inflammation and overexerted tendons. Tony stays. The instructions were clear, and he feels oddly bereaved. Thinks of the gruff, twisted Loki with the metal on his lip and feels like a stripped screw. The shuttle lands less than a minute later, and according to radio chatter the city explodes well before impact. There are casualties, always more casualties, but Ultron is dead and humanity isn't extinct.

Yay, he thinks darkly, we won.


	12. Chapter 12

Time flows differently without sight. Not evenly, and not in a way that can be quantified. The beginning feels like an eternity, like drowning in a torrent of sound. Discordant, clashing noises overlap with the overwhelming murmur of too many people. The voices alone become an unnerving wall of noise, so many unknown persons with unknowable motivations under just enough stress to do something unreasonable to a man who can't see. They speak in an unfamiliar language and all clamor to get out as soon as the shuttle doors open inside the hanger.

Left alone after the crowd dissipates and the barked instructions of the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel grow distant, he feels trance-like and vulnerable. In the absence of visuals, his ears strain for every minuscule change in the environment. Intermittent clanks of metal tools on metal floors and the roar of large machinery catch him off guard and make him jump.

Minute vibrations tingle his fingertips where they rest on the arms of the co-pilot's seat, and he becomes absorbed in them for what feels like no time at all, but might be forever. It stops unexpectedly as the shuttle powers down. Without the distraction his attention snaps to the icky, clammy sensation of sweat-soaked clothes clinging to his limbs, wrinkling at his joints and cutting off circulation in places. He shifts in the chair and the nails-on-a-chalkboard screech of his boots against the floor reminds him that he's wearing his suit. Goosebumps raise on his arms, and the brush of sensitized skin against soiled clothing sends an odd creeping sensation over his shoulders. He's alone, and that's not right. He's a Stark, it's his birthright to have his privacy invaded every second of his life. Surely someone noticed his absence.

Do they think he's dead? Probably. The city exploded while he was off comms, AWOL. No reason to look for a body or confirm the loss, there was no city to search. Maybe his Loki doesn't know he's alive. Or, also possible, maybe Loki knows perfectly well he is alive and doesn't want to see him ever again. He would be justified.

Tony considers removing the blindfold. It's soggy, and the skin under it feels puffy and clammy. The linen is scratchy on his cheeks, and his ears ache from being held flush against his skull. They are warm with trapped blood and he can feel his heartbeat pulsing in them. It's really not cool. But catastrophic is a strong word. Not-Loki wasn't very specific about the parameters of his instructions. There's an outside chance that Not-Tony died after the fight not during, died from some poor choice that Loki's presence will negate. Infinite possibilities make it dangerous to assume. Tony forces himself to relax, to surrender to whatever comes next. A version of Loki suffered a lot to deliver him here, he can wait.

There is something sinister about the darkness. It awakens a meandering contemplation of his life, which is a risky endeavor on a good day. Freud would be tickled pink by the turns his mind takes. He starts in the cave, where all his memory roads terminate, but quickly banishes the image and allows it to reform as something older. The wood paneled living room in Stark Mansion.

His parents' extravagant house always looked menacing at night. The narrow Victorian windows used to cast long, pill-box shadows that warped the carved wood and tufted fabric into mysterious voids. Tony hated walking through it as a kid, always felt like something was waiting in the darkness. By birth he was a terrible sleeper, and he spent most nights trapped alone in his room. Reading, drawing, wanting to wake his mother and beg her to play with him. He knew better. She was an important lady who needed rest, and he was big enough to get his own toys from the living room. But he hated the living room at night so he never did.

Mornings were even worse than nights, mostly because he was always so tired and it made his parents angry. One day he was so drowsy that he hid in the janitor's closet at school and slept until Mr. Jarvis found him hours later. He always found him one way or another. Always dusted him off and asked him so patiently what he was doing, and why, and explained why that wasn't a good thing to do. Mr. Jarvis' chamomile tea and soft spoken words were the sole comfort in the palatial house, and even Tony's incredible A.I. never replaced him. Not adequately, anyway. Hiring Miss Potts seemed like a solution, but it turns out you can't pay someone to care. If you're an ass, no amount of money will keep them around. She was too much like his mother. In charge, firm, but gentle in her disregard for your wishes. For some reason he thought she could be different. She accepted Tony like no one ever had before, but accepting a person isn't the same as loving their flaws.

The parasite stirs as he reminisces. It observes the wandering path, a silent presence in the back of his mind who nudges him into murkier waters, brings up details he thought he forgot. It is curious, it wants to possess even more of him than it already does.

The formal dining room is at the back of the house. A high ceiling hall with gilded walls and a massive oak table for hosting galas. His hands are small on the persian rug, his index finger tracing patterns and naming the shapes. Square, circle, diamond, parabola. Tony looks up every couple seconds to see if his Mother is done talking on the phone. The stretched out spiral of the telephone cord sways across the doorway as she walks back and forth, back and forth. Still talking. Tony sighs, and traces more.

His favorite game is hide and seek, but he doesn't follow the rules. Hide and scare is more fun anyway. It makes him laugh when the grown ups jump and shout. Sometimes they ask him why he's hiding, and that's even better because then he can tell them he's waiting for the Soviets to come so he can jump out and shoot them. Other adults sometimes act weird after he tells them, but Dad loves it and so Tony likes it too.

Today he doesn't want to kill Soviets though, he just wants to scare Mother and make her laugh. She isn't very happy today. A plastic click echoes off the kitchen floors when she hangs up, and Tony peeks through the gaps in the carved oak chairs. He's excited, she'll walk by him now and he can jump out. Sitting up on his knees, he crawls between the clawed feet of the chairs on all fours, ready to pounce. Then the door to his dad's garage squeaks open and he walks in angry, covered in engine oil with his shirt open. Tony pouts, sitting back on his feet. More waiting. He hates waiting.

Dad and Mother talk. They get loud, and he shrinks further under the table, into the dark. His parents circle each other, yelling, scratching, shoving each other into walls. He wants to leave, he only wanted to play with Mother, but if he moves they will see him and he'll get in trouble. They stalk after each other like big cats and Tony presses his hands over his ears and pretends he isn't there. He's not a boy. He's a rug, or a mouse, or a chair. He's something that won't make a sound and get in trouble.

Dad pushes her into the dining room, and Tony covers his mouth with his hands. Squeezes his eyes shut tight. Something heavy lands on the table top, and his mother make scary noises. Dad stands over Mother just a few feet away and they start doing weird stuff, stuff that makes Tony's belly feel funny. He wants to cover his ears and block out the weird noises coming from his mother's mouth, but he only has two hands and he can't make a sound. Something outside the memory growls, and Tony flinches. Wonders why the fuck he's thinking about this.

Power flows up and down his body with a sickening warmth, and Tony gasps, grips the arms of the co-pilots seat and reins it in. It's harder than before, even with the blindfold. The beast uses his fear, as if his reverie served as some kind of calibration and now the parasite can play. Buttons get pushed and his heart rushes, pure crystalline fear hitting his bloodstream and driving him to his feet. Fight or flight, he observes, this thing is riding his adrenal system like a jockey on a horse. He wrestles with it, throws his arms around until he finds a wall and grips it, forces his aching lungs to breath slower. The unmistakable sound of a gun cocking near his head puts an end to the power struggle, slams the parasite's focus outward.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Tony grits between clenched teeth.

"Good, I'd rather not." Romanov says, "I think you need some fresh air."

"I need Loki." Tony says, squirming in his skin, his fingers spasming on the wall where he's sure the suit is crushing steel. There's a pause, in which Tony knows someone is talking in her earpiece. He knows how these people operate. Romanov shifts her weight, and her leather gloves creak against the handle of the gun.

"He's not available right now." she says balancing on the razor's edge between calm and threatening. "I can take a message."

"No." Tony growls, "Get me Loki."

"Let's take a walk." she suggests with an edge that the parasite doesn't like, and the next thing he knows the gun is a shower of steel pellets raining down from Natasha's hand. He can't even see it, but he feels the change in state and hears her involuntary intake of breath.

"I'm not going anywhere until I speak with him." he says. "So you better make him available before I lose my shit."

"Okay." Romanov says, heeled boots stepping back. "Relax, this doesn't have to escalate."

"Fair warning, it probably will." Tony admits, because very few situations de-escalate with the addition of Loki. "You should clear the hanger."

"Fury is clearing the quadrant." Natasha says after another comm unit pause. It's a surprise to Tony that he can tell the difference between the agent and the friend just from her tone, "I'm walking away now."

Tony laughs, a bit grimly, "You treat all your marks this nice?"

"Only when they cooperate."

"This is cooperating?" Tony asks. Natasha steps onto the shuttle ramp and her footsteps turn tinny and reverberated.

"Could have turned me into marbles instead of the gun." she says, walking away.

Tony stumbles to the cockpit door, and puts his hands on the threshold. Time turns liquid again, deprived of his senses and without another person to mark the passage. He stays present, lesson learned.

No noise or sensation precludes his next visitor even though he isn't distracted. There just isn't any sound to hear. A slight jet of energy wells up in front of him, a sixth sense hum that he is starting to recognize as magic.

"Remove your suit." Loki's voice says, monotone. Tony tenses at the sound, tilts his head in it's direction and assumes he's looking at a wall or far to the right of Loki's ear. He feels ridiculous, isolated.

"You came." he says, swallowing around a lump in his throat. His stomach is full of butterflies, nasty wrong butterflies of doubt and guilt.

"You insisted." Loki says. Pauses like Natasha, listening to unheard people.

"I wasn't sure…" Tony says. "You looked so angry-"

"Your suit." Loki repeats flatly. Something about Loki's presence bothers the parasite, sends it skulking into it's den. Tony obeys, without thought.

"Follow me." he says. Strange.

"You…" Tony mumbles, "You aren't mad?"

There's a pause, and even with his blindness-enhanced hearing he can't detect the sort of noises that should accompany a moving person. No rustle of clothing or creak of leather boots.

"Of course not, darling." Loki says coldly. "Hurry up."

"I can't see." Tony says, raising one foot cautiously.

It's alarming. Deeply disconcerting. Walking without sight in an unfamiliar place strips him unexpectedly of any control, makes him feel desperately cut off from his surroundings. With sheer force of will he steps forward, and steadies himself on that leg. Lifts his back foot against all his better instincts and takes a second step. Rams his knee hard into something unmovable, and trips. He reaches automatically for Loki, but no one comes to catch him. He lands hard on both knees and grunts at the pain, feels gritty dirt dig into his fingertips and the sharp geometric grooves of the aluminum flooring sting cold lines on the heels of his palms.

"I'm sorry." Tony says, and it's not what he meant to say. He meant to ask why Loki let him fall. Or maybe to accuse him of being mad. Maybe even call him out for lying about being mad. But everything hurts, inside and out. He feels invaded, invalidated, isolated, and his mouth just runs. "I didn't want to, I didn't-"

"You are not sorry." Loki shouts. "You did what you wanted with no thought at all, and now look at you!"

It's visceral, savagely intense and echoing in the cavernous hanger bay like there's a crowd of Lokis all yelling down at him. Hell, there could be. Tony would never know in this state.

"I'm sorry!" Tony shouts back, ramming his hand on what he thinks is an arm rest and dancing his fingers around until he finds the top. Pushes himself up with it, clumsy as a newborn, and strains for any hint of sound to indicate where Loki is. There's nothing, he is adrift. "Loki?"

"I'm done." Loki says, "No, no leave me alone, I am not doing anymore-"

He sounds like he is talking to someone else until halfway through. And then he cuts out completely. It's like a chasm opening under him, Tony can't move. He's lost him. For real this time, he's gone too far.

Natasha's voice reverberates off the walls, tinny and rough through the intercom system. It's the voice she uses to talk to the blueberries. Shameful as it is, it helps.

"Stay where you are, Stark. We are sending in an escort. You are being taken to a secure holding cell, and there are no hostiles on board. You are safe. Do not make any sudden movements."

Tony puts his hands behind his head. He's gassed, no fight left. Even if the parasite wanted to revolt, he doesn't think he can physically do it. And that's a relief.

The escort arrives and Tony doesn't say a word, lets the person direct him silently with a hand on his back. They make a series of turns he doesn't bother to memorize and he almost loses his lunch when the floor lurches under him. He's surprised by how he can't tell if the elevator is going up or down. The doors slide open, and they walk down a hallway that sounds like the inside of a garbage dumpster but smells like acetone. There's the shick of a security door opening, and then closing, and then another one opening.

The edges of the blindfold are pure white on the other side of the door, and he realizes the escort is gone. He's alone between two doors.

"Five steps forward." Fury says from the ceiling. Tony doesn't see any reason to be difficult. He's probably headed to the Raft, or some similar holding cell for dangerous enhanced people. Good behavior tends to shorten sentences. He takes very cautious steps, bent halfway forward with his hands outstretched. On the fifth one he touches clean glass, about waist high. There's a bundle of something soft wrapped in plastic sitting on it.

"Got you some clean clothes. Figured you wouldn't want to sit around in your bloody rags." Fury says.

"I'm bleeding?" Tony asks, genuinely surprised. He checks himself over, feeling up his arms and down his legs. He feels fine, apart from everything hurting and the general weight of complete exhaustion.

"Higher up, smarty pants." Fury says. Fucker must really be enjoying this. A goddamn sadist is what he is. Tony pats his chest and when he finds nothing moves up to his face. Oh. There are chunks of congealed blood caked in his beard and sticky lines going up to the blindfold, to his nose. Brain hemorrhaging. Fuck, that's not good.

"Five steps right there's a shower." Fury says. "Do me a favor and don't destroy anything for a few minutes. I got another situation to deal with."

Fury cuts out. He stands there getting a feel for the space. It sounds small. Everything is quiet except for the residual humming of the helicarrier turbines and the buzzing fluorescent tube lighting. The white all around the blindfold makes him feel twice as disgusting. And alone.

Carefully measuring a ninety degree turn with the placement of his feet, Tony takes five steps. Finds a wall, and with some hesitant finger walking he finds two taps. He feels around for a curtain or a cubicle or any kind of privacy, but of course there isn't. Sighing, he throws off his sweaty, disgusting clothes and turns a faucet at random.

The water hits him like a punch. Cold enough it almost burns, absolutely frigid. As cold as the time Rhodey drunkenly dared him to skinny dip in the MIT fountain during a blizzard. It's fine, it's what he deserves. He messes with the other tap when his fingers start to go numb, but only because he doesn't want Fury to send in a medic. He slides the blindfold off of his face and pries the dried blood off the tender, inflamed skin under his eyes. Scrubbing it out of his beard takes some patience, but the water helps. There's no towel that he can find, so he just sits on the floor in a puddle and waits. Can't even make himself care that some random security personnel are getting an up close view is his flabby, not-a-thirty-year-old-boxer-anymore gut. The blindfold is disgusting, soaked with sweat and tears and smelling vaguely of copper on the bottom edge. He decides he'll just squint.

Eventually he gets cold and walks carefully back to the table. Rips open the stretchy plastic and feels thin cotton. Scrubs. Wonderful, just what his wardrobe is lacking. If they turn out to be orange Tony might actually kill someone. As he's feeling around his new digs he finds a cot on one wall with a mattress about as thick as a pancake and a scratchy sheet that smells like lye. There's a small box on the mattress and with some awkward fumbling he finds the opening. Tears the cardboard tab off without meaning to. Sunglasses slide out.

Curious, he slides his eyes open, just enough to see a sliver and be instantly blinded by the glowing white. Their not his taste at all. Cheap plastic in a wrap around style favored by Midwestern tourists and hillbillies that unironically ride dirt bikes on the highway. The frames look opaque, though.

"Can't say Fury never gave me anything." he mutters, and slides them on. It takes a long time for his eyes to adjust. It's about as uninteresting as a view can get. Flat black planes over 90% of his visual range, including side panels that block his peripheral vision. But it allows for airflow, and he at least gets the sensation of his eyes functioning normally. He's never noticed that he can feel his pupils contract before, or how pleasant it is just to move his eyeballs without fabric pressing them down.

Various physical sensations filter in over the next few minutes as he finally relaxes. Muscle spasms in his left arm, heavy tiredness behind his eyes, slight headache around his temples, sore feet. Comfortable is not how he would describe it, but it's rest. Goosebumps crawl up his arms when the air conditioner kicks on, and he shuffles back on the bed until his back meets the wall and he crosses his legs. Breathes. He's not sure if he's ever been this still or quiet since he was a kid lying awake at midnight and counting the carved leaves in the crown molding.

There's nothing more to do, so he sits. Waits. Listens to the rhythms of the machine that's carrying him somewhere, and wonders what Not-Loki meant when he said he wished they had talked more.

The thumping of armored walking down the nearby corridor interrupts the silence not long after Tony settles in. It sounds like a SWAT team, all rubber soled boots and Kevlar vests on rattling catwalk grates. He's laying on his back by now, and the commotion makes him sit up and turn his head. At first he thinks it's a patrol or maybe Fury coming to talk to him with a security detail just in case, but then he hears a long sequence of thudding slaps and wounded cries. Jumping to his feet, Tony reaches out and retraces his steps to the table in the center of the room, tip-toeing so as not to cover the noises he's straining to hear. Grunts and sharp exhales barely permeate the walls of his cell, but the crackling discharge of a Widow's bite is as loud as a siren. More struggling, more impacts, and then the kind of solid, metallic thwack that can only be an improvised weapon. A body hits the floor, and Tony winces. Whoever decided to fight Natasha in an enclosed space has his sympathy. Then there's a long, pained moan and Tony's heart stops. It's Loki.

A nearby security door slides open, and Tony can only assume that what follows is Natasha dragging Loki into a cell.

"Loki?" he calls, worried. "Romanov, what's going on?"

"Stay out of this, Stark." she calls, muffled by several walls.

"Is this fucking Guantanamo? I have rights." He shouts, paces to where he thinks the door is and hits it with the meat of his hand. Hurts like a bitch, but it makes a satisfying noise even as it sends stinging vibrations up his bones. Natasha struts down the corridor, and the next time she speaks her voice is much clearer, just outside his cell.

"Mental recalibration." she says, slightly winded, "He was being a bad boy. We had to put him in Time Out."

"He's not a kid." Tony growls defensively.

"Could have fooled me." Natasha drawls, and taps the door of his cell on her way past.

That's not even remotely acceptable. Tony doesn't wait for her to clear the hallway, he turns in the direction of Loki's cell and pokes the parasite awake. The surge starts at the bottoms of his feet and shoots upward, raising the hair on his legs and sending sparks of heat up his back.

Suddenly he desperately needs to see. It's not even a complete thought, just the beginnings of a brain wave to signal his hand to take off his glasses, but the stone responds. It's wordless but there is a kind of communication between his mind and the parasite, the unnamed notion of an interface, and then the back of the glasses becomes a kind of holo screen. It's still solid when he touches it, and he can't see his own fingers in front of his face, but the things he wants to see appear like a spam filter on his vision. Just the relevant stuff, none of the noise. It's kind of revolutionary.

He does a quick turn, and the four walls of his cell appear. It's small, like he thought. Probably about twelve steps deep by seven wide. The table isn't in the middle like he thought, it's actually fairly close to one wall, and Tony realizes he almost ran face first into it a couple times. Successfully oriented, he turns back in the direction he heard Loki groan.

The wall is plate steel, and stubborn. It's much thicker than the bots, much less eager to be molded than the vibranium. He finds all he can do in one function is change it to glass. The next room is empty. Tony picks up the glass top table and throws it, enjoys the somewhat taboo sound of glass breaking and ringing as it lands. The next wall is somewhat easier after he remembers to summon up his targeting interface. Rather than brute force the mutation, he adds a shortcut algorithm to his right hand wheel and turns his wrist. Like opening a door knob the wall turns to glass, and there's Loki on the other side, unconscious.

The table makes a second trip through a glass wall and Tony spans the distance quickly. He doesn't think about the glass on his bare feet until he's stepping on it and the Aether shoves it away in small circles like ripples in a pond. Sliding onto the floor, he kneels over Loki's form and inspects him. The glasses aren't the same as looking, it's just a sort of outline with vague shadows and highlights. His concern layers some life signs over the display, and that helps a lot. He doesn't seem too bad. A nasty burn on his neck from the electric shock, and a shallow welt on his right temple. It's a perfect rectangle, deeper in the center, like someone nailed him with a pipe or a baton. Yikes.

Nervously shaking out his hands, Tony focuses on the interface radials. They are blue, roughly aligned with the spread of his fingertips, and dotted with the few shortcuts he's programmed in so far. They are all very destructive, and he carefully tucks away the flashes of memory he gets as he reads the icons. Picturing a warm yellow hue, he turns the menus gold and imbues them with an irrevocable limit of non-lethal force. They flicker ominously for a few seconds and he doubles down, slides into his most stubborn dad mentality and thinks oh no you don't you little shit . A war of forces and pressure happens in that strange sixth sense place that's growing in the back of his mind, and he holds firm. The arrays blink back bright yellow, maybe even smoother than before, and he loosens his hold. The stone rolls and draws in on itself, sends him the bare minimum amount of power that he's demanding and sort of sulks. It's as sentient as advertised, but he gets the feeling that it's less of a person and more of a creature. Purely emotional, instinctual. It thinks but it doesn't reason, and it folds when Tony calls its bluff. Good to know.

Healing is new. Nerve wracking. Pietro wasn't exactly alive to leave a Yelp review. Considering the various ways he could go about this, it feels most natural to touch him. He lays his thumb over Loki's hairline and runs down the mark, pictures his tiny blood vessels knitting back together and his body absorbing the discolored tissue. When his thumb reaches Loki's cheek the mark is gone. Tony's stomach unknots itself, and he runs his other hand down Loki's corded neck, repeats the process. Looking around, he remembers that he's meant to be a prisoner and feels vaguely idiotic for demonstrating how symbolic his capture is. Fury's probably having an aneurysm right now.

Looping his forearms under Loki's shoulders he hoists him up, grabs him around the waist and drags him over to the nearest cot. There are shards of glass all over it, and Tony has to transfer Loki's weight to one arm so he can sheepishly untuck the sheet and shake off the fragments. It still glitters when he sets it down, so he turns the tiny embedded pieces into actual glitter and figures that's good enough. By the time he's done, he's honestly surprised Fury hasn't threatened him back to his cell yet.

Laying Loki on his back in the glorified lawn chair, he argues with himself over removing his bulkier clothing. He supposes Loki can put them back on with little more than a thought, and he'll sleep better without it. Fortunately he wore his tactical suit and not his Asgardian digs, so it only takes a minute to unclip the armor plates and free his feet from his boots.

Yikes, those are some stinky feet. Tony wrinkles his nose and smirks despite himself. Even the unsexy things make his chest tight when it comes to Loki. Slipping off Loki's smelly socks, he frowns at the blisters littered over his heels and toes. Sitting on the edge of the cot, Tony starts with the big sores on the heels. It's more complicated than a burn or a bruise. There's more wrong than just damaged capillaries. It's hard to tell what's going on under the skin, but he thinks he's doing it right. One foot comes out clean and whole, so Tony switches to the other. This one has small blisters on a few toes. Those are really difficult to heal. There isn't much tissue between skin and bone, and that means a very narrow margin for error. He is in the process of draining one when Loki starts to stir.

Small movements give way to rapid blinking and a deep intake of breath, and then Loki jerks up. Tony freezes, oddly caught out by Loki's wide eyes and stiff posture. He scans Tony's hands, the golden arrays, his one unmarred foot and the other dotted with blisters. He kicks Tony in the solar plexus and scrambles backward until he's standing on the cot with his back in the corner.

"You dare touch me after what you've done?" Loki says.

The blow throws Tony off the bed and he lands on his back, little shards of glass poking through his thin shirt and grounding him from the sinking void that's opening in his chest. Something feral overcomes him, an insane need to be closer, to crowd Loki into the wall and fix this. Make him thrash, or cry, or whatever it is that will give him relief from how Tony's made him feel. He climbs back on the cot, an uncoordinated crawl on hands and knees until he's at Loki's feet and reaching to hug him around his hips. He can't explain what comes over him, but he can't hold it back, it's a dire, irresistible need to restore closeness. He opens his mouth to say something, hell to beg his forgiveness or something equally unprecedented, and a knife materializes in Loki's hand.

"Get away from me." Loki warns, pointing the needle-thin tip of the dagger under Tony's chin, soft enough not to pierce but precariously close. Tony's throat quivers under the silver threat, and all he can do is stare at the terrifying coldness in Loki's eyes. His hand is steady on the blade, not a hint of a tremor or doubt. His body is poised for the strike, and Tony can't see any trace of the playful, tender-hearted person he swore to protect. Trembling, he tips his chin up, tempts Loki to end his anguish. Half hopes that he does.

"I didn't do it to hurt you." Tony says. Speaking pricks his skin. A small stream of blood drips from the cut Tony can't even feel, and he doesn't flinch when Loki pushes the blade up. He tilts Tony's chin as high as it can go and holds him on the razor's edge. The parasite flares at the threat, and Tony shoves it back with all of his will.

"Go away." Loki says.

"I wronged you. Let me make it right, I want to make this right." Tony begs. Something crumbles in Loki's resolve and he covers his face with his free hand, panting around an emotional wound that Tony can feel gaping between them.

"There is no right!" Loki chokes around his seizing throat, "I entrusted everything to you. I asked no price but this. I don't understand-"

"We have to. One of us has to." Tony says, daring to wrap his hands around Loki's and pull the knife away. "If we lose, there's no more us. We have to win-"

"Not like this, we do not!" Loki says. Shaking off Tony's hands, he lashes out, aims a closed fist at Tony's cheek and the stone retaliates. It blasts Loki into the wall in a violent burst of red. He lands crumpled on the metal bed frame.

"Shit." Tony says, backing away. Loki meets his eyes, and his legs almost fail him. "It's the stone, it's-"

"It defends the host, yes." Loki whispers, curling into a fetal position and turning his face to the wall with his cheek on his knee. "Just go. Please. I want to be alone."

Tony feels like he's turning to stone. His legs are as stiff and heavy as lead. He obeys. Rubbing at his eyes, he summons up one hand menu and reconstructs the wall. Turns it back to steel. There is two walls worth of material so it's almost twice as thick. In a moment of weakness he leaves a porthole in the middle with a small grate underneath so he can hear Loki moving in the other room. He banishes the interface. It goes quietly, almost whining like it's the one that's out of gas. Maybe the connection is less one-way than he thought. His head hurts.

Tony dumps his face under the sink faucet and groans at the icy relief. He half wants to drown himself in the basin but he doesn't have the balls. Once his brain starts screaming for air he shoots up and slams his head on the tap. His hair drips in his eyes and he brushes it back like a Sean Connery wannabe.

"Do these lights go off?" He moans at the ceiling, stumbling towards his cot. "Fury? Anybody?"

Nothing.

Flopping on his back he rips off his glasses and drops them on the floor by the bed. Puts his elbow over his nose and recalls a jingle from an eighties TV commercial. Raising his hands in the air, he claps twice and turns the lights off himself.

When he wakes the lights are back on, and there's a shower running next door. Laying in a half dream, he forgets where he is. Anticipates rounding up the kids and throwing together some of his world famous disgusting omelets. The water cuts off and he backtracks, imagines Loki coming out of the bathroom loose-limbed and warm from the shower. Then he opens his eyes and his world is blinding lights and steel walls and his lover hating him in the cell next door. His gut writhes like a pit of snakes, and he starts to understand all the suicide blogs from a radical new perspective, starts to want to choke on the nearest firearm.

He sits up and literally everything hurts. Picking his glasses off the floor feels like a stretch. Standing up he walks stiffly to the toilet and relieves himself before he can think too much about it and lose his nerve. He sets his glasses on the sink and splashes water on his face. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he realizes there is a mirror over the sink, and catches a glimpse of blue in the reflection. Tony turns and walks to the porthole, peers through.

Loki is dripping wet and looking around the cell. Yeah, no towels at the Motel Fury. Thems the breaks. Shrugging, Loki inhales deeply, touches his thumbs to his ring fingers and steam rises off his body in a cloud. Cheater. Tony supposes he could have done that too, he just didn't think about it. Loki itches at a wound in his side, a long deep looking gash that Tony didn't notice under his clothes, and their eyes meet. They both freeze, caught up in a moment that could go a lot of ways.

Loki's clawed hand absently picks at the wound, and it draws Tony's attention. It's a long cut, deep purple in the center and oozing where Loki peels up the scabs and digs in with his nails. His face is vacant, like his spark has gone out and this is just a wisp of smoke left behind.

Loki's eyes flick to the seeping mess on his fingers and back to Tony's. His lips pull into a taut wire smile. There's a merciless, haunting depth sliding into his eyes that Tony has never seen before. Loki digs deeper, flinching involuntarily as he holds Tony's gaze. Sick laughter bubbles up at whatever Loki sees in him.

"Do you disapprove?" he taunts, "Does this displease you?"

"What are you doing?" Tony asks, jaw tight.

"Whatever I want. Or is that something only you are permitted to do?" Loki says, sinking his claw-like nails into his chest and dragging them down his torso with cruel purpose. Angry welts rend his lines and tear at his flesh, leaving behind parallel lines of seeping blood.

"What the fuck are you doing, stop!" Tony yells, scrambling to the glass window with an outstretched hand.

"Stop? Why? Because it hurts you?" Loki snarls, ripping his other hand down the crown of his head and over his eyes, slicing down into his cheek. He gasps even as he does it. His chest heaves. Fresh blood wells up from the wounds and he smears it across his cheek and down his jaw, scowling like a feral animal. Tony reaches desperately for the stone, but it alludes him, taunts him. It desires destruction. Of course it doesn't want to stop Loki.

"That is the point!" Loki screams.

A red light in the ceiling turns on, spinning like a police car and a siren blares. The light glints off Loki's blue skin and makes him look fiendish, like a Biblical demon. The sound of armored bodies echoes down the cell block corridor, but Loki doesn't relent. Crazed eyes dig hooks into Tony and he slams his fists into the wall as Loki rakes another vicious stripe up his stomach.

"Don't!" Tony shouts, slamming against the divider and feeling a pressure all down his front like his soul is trying to escape.

"My pain did not concern you when there was power to grab!" Loki screams, "Why should it matter to you now?"

Tony feels like his own guts are spilling, like Loki's shredding him too. Loki begins exploding the bathroom fixtures with bursts of magic that shake the floor and fill the air with white ceramic dust. Screaming, he pulls at his hair and Tony feels helpless, eviscerated. Somehow it feels exactly like being waterboarded, like being forced into a bucket repeatedly with only spare seconds of relief in which Loki pants and stumbles and grips his face. He digs deeper, harder into that ethereal place where the stone resides, and he comes up empty handed.

The security door in Loki's cell opens, and Tony wants to murder someone. It's Thor and Rogers, looking self-righteous and patriotic. Agitated as he is, Loki doesn't hesitate. He fires a bolt of green energy before they even pass the threshold and Rogers reflects it. The bolt lodges in Loki's side and knocks him on his back. Thor tackles him in a pool of his own blood and Loki goes ballistic.

"Loki, stop this madness. You are hurting yourself." Thor shouts, as if Loki is somehow unaware of his actions. He pins Loki with his weight and pulls his arms behind his back. Loki thrashes so hard that Tony worries he might dislocate his shoulder. Screaming, Loki's skin starts shimmering, quaking erratically like he's lost control of his shape, like he wants to be everything and nothing all at once, and a plume of fire comes out his mouth. Thor leaps away, and Tony can only watch in horror as flames engulf Loki's body and he rolls on the floor, shooting fire from his lips like water from a fountain. He's shrieking, crying, banging his fists, and Tony beats the wall in time, yells with him until his fucking powers finally work and he rips a hole through four inches of steel.

"Get away from him!" Tony says, throwing himself over Loki and blocking a column of fire with a translucent red shield that appears just in time, completely instinctive. "He's mine, don't touch him."

"Tony-" Steves says in his not-a-good-idea voice.

"What don't you understand about 'Get Lost,' Rogers?" Tony wraps the shield around him like a coat and lays down on top of Loki, puts his hand over his mouth and makes shushing noises in his ear.

"It's okay." Tony says, "We're gonna get through this, okay, we're gonna figure this out."

Loki's yelling turns into broken wailing and the flames whip out all around him. It takes everything Tony has to hold him there, but this much is familiar. He knows what Loki needs in these breakdowns, and he gives it. Holds him down and waits for the flames to snuff out. The floor is singed black, and the air thick with smoke, but he seems unharmed by his spontaneous combustion. He kicks and wriggles, but Tony manages to stay in control, manages to catch the hand that attempts to slap him and forces it to the ground near Loki's head. The other hand beats on Tony's back repeatedly, weakly, and Loki whines, grunting out frustrated noises into his hand. Tony looks around and finds that they are alone, then reaches out to locate the hidden cameras and microphones in the ceiling. Disconnects them. This is no one's business but theirs.

Loki's hips buck into Tony's weight, and at first he thinks it's just more struggling. He thinks Loki is just fighting his demons, and then he feels a familiar length nudging his leg and he looks down in surprise. Loki's hard. Red eyes meet his and all he sees is anger and a frustration that's more sexual at second glance. Loki's still hitting him in the back, wrestling against his hold and earnestly trying to escape, but he's also humping Tony's leg and it's too much, too confusing, too fucked up. He rolls off of him, stung, freaked out, but Loki follows. He straddles Tony's hips and rakes his claws through his hair, plunges his tongue into his mouth.

Tony shoves him away, but Loki's strong, he's heavy, he's not going anywhere.

"Yours. You said it, you can't take it back." Loki gasps.

"What the hell-" Tony says. "A few hours ago you didn't want me to touch you. You aren't thinking rationally-"

"I shall think a great deal more rationally after an orgasm or three." Loki growls, rolling to his back and pulling Tony with him, wrapping his legs tight around Tony's hips and dragging him down.

"Mjolnir." Tony says breathless, "Fuck, let me go, I'm not doing this."

"Do you not wish to make it up to me? Was that another empty promise?" Loki demands, "This is not some game you can quit when it does not appeal to you."

"That's the problem!" Tony yells, "That's the whole fucking problem. It's supposed to be a game. There are supposed to be rules and limits, and goddamn condoms. You think I have a fucking condom right now?"

"Will you not grant me one thing which you do not want yourself?" Loki snaps, "I indulge all of your strange desires, all your soft words and coddling. Now fuck me, Stark."

"Dammit, no." Tony's chest heaves, he feels dizzy. He keeps getting flashes of persian rugs and shoes scuffing the floor while his mother yelps. "I can't, I fucking can't. You can't ask me to do this fucked up shit to you."

Tony lays his head on Loki's chest and tries to force his breathing slower. His eyes burn. There is a tide rising up, a seemingly bottomless chasm of despair in his heart trying to leak out of his eyes. He spends every day dancing around it, trying not to fall in, and Loki just walked him waist deep and dunked him.

His throat burns with the effort of containing the wounded animal noises that he makes when he cries. Never in his life has Tony cried quietly. The drugs and the alcohol were just really great scapegoats, he was weak like this before all that. His vocal chords crack, and a whine escapes, a brittle, pathetic sound that injects him with self hatred. It only grows louder as the shame kicks in and the tears start to flow.

Loki cries at the drop of a hat and Tony doesn't think less of him for it. He thinks it's incredible how Loki can let go with nothing but a firm touch and a spoken invitation. But he can't find the same compassion for himself. He feels defective, like he's not tough enough to keep this shit locked down. Weak. He's certain Loki will be disgusted. Loki hates weakness of any kind. Tony never intended to lose control around him, ever.

A hand touches his neck, and Tony clutches Loki's shoulders. He hides his stupid weeping in the hollow of Loki's arm, and his whole body tenses. He feels like he's about to burst from the pressure of holding himself back, it's physically painful.

"I-It is… It is alright." Loki stutters, his voice soft and gravelly from misuse. His hand runs over Tony's scalp, and his walls turn to shredded paper. There's static in his head, a remnant of constant doubt and constant fear, of all the stress he's lived with. It yanks something out of him that he didn't know he had left to give. It goes on and on, and he can't stop.

"I'm sorry. I'll do it, okay, just don't leave me-" Tony begs, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, please don't leave-"

"No." Loki says, his long arms wrapping around Tony's neck. He hesitates. Tony knows his face, he knows exactly the look of stiff discomfort he's wearing without even looking, and he feels like he's forcing himself on Loki in a different way. A more intimate, damaging way that Loki isn't prepared to handle. He digs his fingers into Loki's arms, and belatedly realizes he's been on Loki's lines the whole time. Oh god, he's been pouring this toxic sludge right into his mind. He wrenches his hands away, into his chest, but Loki grabs them and unfurls Tony's fingers. Loki flattens his palms on his scabbed, ruined chest lines and the body under him heaves. Loki cries with him.

"I'm so sorry-" Tony chokes, and Loki runs his fingers gently through his scalp. His head tingles under the careful drag of claws, and the warmth spreads down Tony's chest and curls up around his patchwork heart.

"No, I am sorry. I-" Loki whispers, "You feel this every time you doubt my… my willingness."

"Yes." Tony gasps, overwhelmed with relief that burns like a white hot brand. Finally, finally Loki understands. "God, yes."

"I... I do not think I am capable of all that you expect from me." Loki says.

That wrings out the last of Tony's tears, the assurance that he has not lost everything. He lays there helpless, buried in Loki's side like a child and tries to get a grip. His nose is dripping, and Loki's chest feels like dry earth under his fingers. Tony sucks up air and shifts so he can press his face into the hollow of Loki's neck. He squeezes his soggy eyes closed and smells Loki's skin. A weak aftershock rolls through him, and he drips a few more pathetic tears into the hair behind Loki's ear.

"I just want us to stop scaring the shit out of each other." Tony mumbles. Sniffles. God he's disgusting, he hates this. He angles his head down, and the sight of Loki's wounds makes him flinch. The welts are half cauterized from the flames, black and purple and still seeping in places. He prays that the parasite cooperates, and summons up his hand array. It's gold, fuzzy but there. Charred blood and torn flesh repair under his fingers, and he takes it slowly. Loki gasps, holding onto the muscle between Tony's shoulder and neck, and together they feel the passage of magic from sternum to hip and back.

Loki's eyes are wet and sunken. The fluorescent lights bleach his skin an unhealthy grey blue. Tony sits up higher, leaning on one arm as he runs his hand up Loki's blood smeared face and into his hair. Dried blood clumps around the roots, and Tony has to weave the magic carefully around each tiny strand.

"It doesn't hurt?" Tony asks.

"No." Loki says, simply.

When he's done, he feels hollow. Both he and Loki are cracked and the only thing that feels solid is his body against Tony's. Loki fidgets, avoiding his gaze, and Tony knows he's reached the end of Loki's touch tolerance. Sitting up feels like ripping a layer of skin off with the bandaid, but he does it.

"I think you need another shower." Tony says regretfully, knees twinging as he struggles to his feet. Steel floors, ugh, he'll have bruises tomorrow. Chalky white dust covers his scrub pants and he dusts it off roughly. Loki sits cross legged and surveys the aftermath of his rampage.

"Mine appears to be out of commission." he rasps. Tony has to agree with that. Water gushes from the severed pipes of the shower and the sink is in eight pieces in the middle of the rising puddle. Tony twists the pipes with a flick of his index finger and fuses the ends until there are no leaks. His head twinges, and a trickle of blood slips from his nose. He wipes it with the edge of his shirt and extends his hand to Loki.

"Guess you can clean up at my place." he says with a tired quirk of his lips.

"So generous." Loki replies, and rises up on his own. Wobbles a bit before finding his balance.

"Yeah, whatever. Come on." Tony murmurs, leading him through the shredded hole in the wall and closing it behind him. "We need to talk."

Loki wrinkles his nose, and turns on the cold water tap.

For once sharing Loki's dread of the impending relationship talk, Tony lays on his cot and kicks his brain into order. This insane up and down is killing them, and it's time to put a stop to it. To lay down boundaries and stick to them. Rather than frantically searching for a plan like normal, he finds himself just gathering energy. They are in a cell, most likely on their way to be poked and dissected by the World Security Council. They have nothing but time.

A/N: AHHHH what a heavy chapter. Thank you all for going on this journey with me and the boys. I promise it will get better! Everything will be okay! D:  
Reviews help a lot to keep my motivation high, and constructive criticism is welcome. I want to improve, and I value your feedback, so please take a minute if you have any thoughts, I genuinely love hearing them. Cheers!


	13. Chapter 13

Healthy and sane individuals would probably have this conversation sitting side by side, exchanging sympathetic glances and apologizing for past wrongs. He and Loki never claimed to be healthy or sane, though, and he knows a reasonable conversation would only last as long as it took Loki to wriggle out of it. So instead Tony jumps in the deep end, and figures at the very least Loki will play along just to see where the hell he's going with this.

"Chained and domesticated." Tony says without preamble, laying sideways on the cot and watching water pool at Loki's feet. His blue boyfriend stiffens under the spray from the shower head, his fingers wound in his tangled hair and attempting to tease out the scabs. He is skilled at hiding his reactions, as a general rule, but not shame. Humiliation has a way of creeping around his masks and shining out of his eyes like a road flare drawing attention to a car crash.

"What?" Loki says tightly, aiming for nonchalance and missing by a mile.

"'You would have me chained and domesticated.'" Tony quotes, "Pretty sure those were your exact words."

Loki doesn't acknowledge that. He shuffles from foot to foot and digs further into the mess between his horns. Tony sits up. Five minutes of flicking through the rolodex of he and Loki's previous attempts gave him a few good leads. Neither of them are ever going to be fully prepared for this, so all in all he doesn't feel too wrong footed. Even if he had a detailed outline, nicely written cue cards, and a goddamn powerpoint he would probably toss it out and improvise anyway.

"That's the most upsetting misunderstanding, for me." Tony continues. "Because I think I've made it pretty clear, like, multiple multiple times, that I want you as an equal."

Loki sighs. Doesn't even look up. Tony's hands find their way to the wrinkled fabric around his knees and he starts to pick at the seams impatiently. He needs Loki to invest some effort into this, but he just hunches his shoulders and stands there like a naked cherub in a park fountain.

"For fuck's sake, will you say something?"

Loki turns the tap off roughly, and the water cuts out. Wet feet slap on the floor as he stalks toward Tony.

"You never complained about restraining me before." Loki accuses, coming to a stop in front of him and crossing his arms. He's dripping water all over the sheets and on Tony's pants. He can't help but feel like he's being provoked.

"You needed it. And we didn't fuck like that-"

"We used to. Before you decided I was unfit." Loki says.

Guilt slices Tony just thinking about it. Rough sex was fun enough with strangers he didn't care about, more so with Loki in the beginning. He was a lot less inhibited when he was doing his whole sexually liberated Bond girl act, and Tony didn't feel particularly guilty about roughing up a war criminal. But then they fell in love, and all that started to feel really risky.

"Maybe I have some regrets about that." Tony hedges, struggling to keep his tone even and his face diplomatic. "Maybe I don't think you'll stop me if things go wrong."

"If your cock is in my ass, I fail to see how anything can go wrong." Loki mumbles under his breath. His cheeks light up a dusky purple, but there's a bold little smirk on one side of his lips that gives Tony hope. Water drips on his bare feet and he decides he can't sit any longer.

Slipping off the cot with a squeal of poorly manufactured springs, Tony pulls the top sheet up with him and folds it in half a couple times. Starting on a rounded shoulder, he runs the sheet down Loki's arm.

"A lot, Loki." Tony sighs. "When no means yes, a lot can go wrong."

"I never said no-"

"Your body did." Tony says.

Taking his hand, Tony turns Loki's wrist over and dries between his fingers, in the valley of his palm, and up to the inside of his elbow. Loki accepts the care with his usual stoicism, but his flushed cheeks soften his blank expression into something approaching openness. He's listening.

"My answer is still no." Tony says, "Maybe later on, when we know what the hell we're doing-"

"What are we doing?" Loki asks, eyeing the improvised towel and Tony's hand clutching his.

"Reparations." Tony says, rubbing the towel down Loki's chest, and lifting his elbow to dry the short patch of fuzz under his arm. "We both fucked up. And I'm hoping by the time we're done making it up to each other, maybe we'll have some ground rules."

"Generally methods of repayment are agreed upon beforehand."

"Then let's negotiate." Tony says. "I want to touch you. Not sex just-"

"I was going to ask for sex." Loki interrupts, his lips pursed and shoulders tense.

"Really? After what just happened, you're really gonna ask me again?"

"Not like that." Loki crosses his arms and looks down, "At this point I would settle for nearly anything."

"Settle? We do stuff all the time."

"We sit on the couch and watch television. If I am quite lucky you might look at me once or twice before falling asleep on your tablet."

"I haven't been in the mood-" Tony mumbles.

"Am I displeasing?" Loki demands, motioning to his naked form, "Has something changed in my appearance which repels you? Two days ago you turned down even my mouth-"

"Because you hate giving blowjobs-"

"Well I hate this more!" Loki huffs, "One day you want to discuss marriage, the next you are turning yourself into a weapon, and now here you are clinging like a child with a doll. Do you not desire me beyond the comfort you take at my presence?"

"I've been busy!" Tony says, running a hand through his hair in frustration, and tossing the folded up sheet on the bed. "I've been flying all over the world trying to fix what I screwed up. I've had my name raked through the mud, and…"

Loki's hands clench at his sides, and Tony counts the number of times he just said I. He cringes, pinching his nose.

"...and I owe you." Tony says. "But you really should have told me. That's our only rule, you're supposed to tell me."

"And you were supposed to leave the Aether in the Tesseract. And I was supposed to stop my advances after you used our safeword." Loki says, his hand making a circular motion as he follows the flow of their actions. "Don't you see there is no right here? We may go back and forth adding tallies upon one another's record, but no amount of apologetic gestures would wipe it all out."

"Then maybe we don't keep score." Tony says, bending stiffly to pick up the folded sheet and holding it open in front of him. Relaxing his face, he allows hopeless optimism to show and pleads with his eyes. "Come here."

Loki could make the simplest concession look like a marathon. The man was born to bicker and nitpick, and Tony can see what it costs him to be a little less obstinate right now. Genuinely, Tony wishes Loki didn't have to compromise his personality, but he isn't a saint. He can't do this with someone that only loves him when he's naked. He knows that's not the case, can see it in every awkward, forced truth that comes out of Loki's mouth and in the stilted way he says goodbye like he'd rather skip the sad part and go straight to pining. But at times like these, it really wouldn't hurt to hear an I Love You.

Bowing his head, Loki shuffles between Tony's outstretched arms and allows him to wipe the water from his face and neck. He wraps the sheet around Loki's damp shoulders when he's finished, wrestling with a strong urge to comfort him, or maybe himself. Running his hands up the curve of Loki's stomach and cradling the slight mounds of his breasts, he supposes Loki has gained some weight since his brush with death. It's only natural, what with him eating and sleeping the proper amounts. If anything he looks closer to healthy than Tony has ever seen him. Peppering kisses across the plane of Loki's chest, he circles his thumbs around those cute little nipples and ghosts his breath over the sensitive skin. Goosebumps raise over Loki's chest and he grips Tony's shoulders, sighing.

"I'm sorry I betrayed your trust." Tony says, cupping his hands around Loki's jaw and tugging him down into steady, reassuring kisses that stick to their lips like dripping molasses. Loki returns his hesitant pecks, long arms wrapping around Tony and holding him there. The inhuman heat of his body is like a thermal blanket, permeating through thin clothes and warming him from head to hip. At the first tentative brush of tongue he sucks Loki into his mouth and encourages him to take over with a rumbled groan.

The kiss morphs under Loki's direction, turns intense, devouring, and as unpredictable as the man giving it. Tony burrows into his embrace, gripping his jaw with both hands while they lose themselves. His hands find their way into Loki's wild hair and he winds his fingers in to the roots and uses it to anchor those thin lips against his. His head goes pleasantly vague from the lack of oxygen, but he drags it out as long as he can. They break away breathless and soft, swollen lips travel down Tony's beard to suck at the spot below his ear that never fails to get his blood pumping. He allows it, lays his head on Loki's arm and luxuriates. Nobody kisses like Loki, nobody.

Playing absently with Loki's hair, Tony slips the sheet off his shoulders and brings it around to finish the job. Starting with his arm, he repeats the process from earlier, drying between his fingers, then scruffing up the faint black hairs on Loki's knuckles and over his bony wrist. This time when he lifts the elbow to dry his underarm, a corner dips into the hollow of one of his ribs and he giggles, reflexively angling his torso away. The dumbest smile spreads across Tony's face.

"Ticklish?" he teases.

"No!" Loki snorts. Feeling devious, Tony grazes his other hand up Loki's side, just barely tingling along his ribs, and Loki laughs uncontrollably.

"Stop it-" he gasps, but Tony doesn't. He drops the sheet on the bed and goes at it with both hands, laughing at the way Loki twitches and tries to slap his hands away.

"Tony, come now-" Loki doubles over, protecting his sides with his arms and composing his face into a stern glare with a lot of effort. It doesn't reach his eyes, which are glittering with mirth and surprise. "You're being ridiculous."

Tony chuckles, throwing an arm around Loki's back and kissing the top of his head. Between the horns, like he always does. It feels right, despite the leftover wariness and guilt.

Strangely settled in this precise configuration of he and Loki, he takes notes. The way he has Loki under his hand, the relaxed quality of both of their bodies, the quiet thrill of his touch earning a visceral, involuntary reaction. It's authentic in a way that rope harnesses and riding crops never felt, this feeling of Loki entrusting his very breakable heart to Tony.

Walking behind Loki, he drapes the sheet around his head and ruffles it through his wet hair. Pressing his luck, he gathers up a corner and pats gently around the base of the horns.

Loki shudders. "C-Careful-"

Nodding, Tony continues lightly circling the intersection of horn and skull, following the coarse fabric with a soothing graze of fingers.

"Stop-" Loki gasps, "I can do it."

"Shh, let me." Tony whispers, massaging Loki's scalp and slowly continuing his work.

The horns emerge at an angle, and thanks to Fen's abysmal hygiene he's learned that Jotun can get awful rashes if the skin isn't dried all the way. It's a very sensitive area, even a light touch rides the line between nice and painful, and Tony gives the task his full attention. Once it's done he buries his nose in messy hair and presses dainty kisses to the horns, enjoying the fragile exhales that escape Loki's mouth and the musky person-smell that he can't normally detect under scented shampoo.

He flattens his hand on Loki's chest and guides him to stand up straight. The sheet slips down around his shoulders like a shawl and Tony takes a moment to appreciate the sight of his back. Running both hands up and down, he dries and massages Loki through the sheet. He's a tower of whipcord muscles and stiff joints, so much so that Tony can barely pick out the bones from the soft tissue. He squeezes Loki's tense neck, thumbs deep circles under his bird-like shoulder blades, and strokes all the way down to squeeze at his butt.

Loki's ass makes an excellent stress ball. Tony feels pretty calm with Loki leaning against him and silently accepting his touch. It makes him a bit contemplative. There's still a long list of questions that need to be shared, and maybe he will be better at answering if Tony demonstrates the practical application. Gives him a hint at how much better the sex will be if he just gives Tony a clue. He has to stand on his toes and angle his chin up to whisper in Loki's ear but it is well worth the trouble to feel him shiver.

"You've been saying a lot of interesting things lately." Tony murmurs in a casual just-business tone, his hand coming to rest firmly around Loki's hips.

"Have I?" Loki asks.

"Oh yeah. Very interesting."

Moving his right hand to Loki's front, he grazes his fingers up his belly and dances them between his breasts. Loki hums at the feather-light touch and grinds his ass against Tony's stiffening dick. He wonders if Loki is getting hard yet but he doesn't check, doesn't want to kill the anticipation. There's a definite thrill building, a hunger that's not entirely the same as normal sex but not totally different. Loki sucks down a deep, measured breath that comes back out as a whine.

"For example," Tony says, abruptly wrapping his hand around Loki's neck and reeling him down until his back touches Tony's chest and his lips brush the back of Loki's ear. "'Please, sir.'"

He doesn't really choke him, it's purely symbolic. A test of trust. Loki allows it, hell he's turned on by it, his body quivering against Tony and melting into him. That's surprising. He didn't think Loki would be comfortable with that.

"You caught me off guard with that one." Tony admits, "I don't really go for titles, wasn't expecting it."

"Your A.I.-" Loki starts, his body tensing like a bowstring.

"Modeled after a real person. Employed by my father."

"Oh-" Loki says, his eyes fluttering open in surprise, "I didn't know."

"I know, don't worry about it." Tony says, lowering his hand to Loki's collarbone and patting him in a soothing cadence. "But uh, that does it for you? The name game."

Loki purses his lips, his nostrils flaring in embarrassment. Tony can practically see his mind tying him up in knots. His damp hair is plastered to his skin, so it's nothing for Tony to loop a handful around his fingers and jerk him back to the present. Damn, but Loki really goes for the hair pulling. One sharp tug and his eyes flutter shut again.

"Don't overthink it, just say yes or no."

"Y-Yes." Loki gasps.

"What do you like about it?" he asks, sucking on Loki's neck with loud, wet noises that make him blush even darker

Loki bites his lip, swallows. "The formality is appealing."

"Formality. Interesting." Tony repeats, his mind flicking through the options. There's got to be something Loki can call him that won't make him cringe, laugh, or both. Master, cringe. Lord, lame. Daddy, ick. Boss… possible. Very possible. Still, he doesn't really see what's wrong with just using their names. He's certainly not going to call Loki a dirty little slut anytime soon. He's pretty sure he couldn't deliver that line with a straight face.

"Shall I come to dread the word interesting?" Loki muses, and Tony figures he's let the mood lapse a little too long. Releasing Loki's hair, he pries a hand between them and tugs the wet sheet off of Loki's back and sends it slapping onto the floor. Loki shivers at the sound and the loss of coverage, instinctively curling inward, and it ignites a warm jolt up Tony's spine. The feeling surprises him.

For months the two of them have been fumbling at this puzzle, trying to jam pieces together and make them fit, and Tony supposes he's been looking at it backwards. Maybe he's been too focused on trying to fit Loki's pieces together when he should have been digging around in his own bin, figuring out what he wants out of all this.

It still isn't clear what exactly they are doing, but it seems like he gets off on Loki's reactions. Makes sense. He's always been an empathetic partner. Always enjoyed whatever activity got his partners hot without much thought to his own interests, but this is more than that. This is closer to a need, a hunger to see Loki shed all that stodgy Asgardian dignity and just enjoy himself without shame holding him back. With that in mind, he drags his hand over Loki's chest and down the crease of his leg, neatly avoiding his cock and grinning at the meal of protest it earns him. He pinches a soft spot on his inner thigh and Loki twists in his arms. The zing of satisfaction in his dick affirms the theory well enough for him.

Loki looks like a scarecrow after the loss of the sheet, a bundle of awkward limbs below an uncertain face. Tony places his hands on the slopes of his shoulders and adjusts them, moves them down into a relaxed position that doesn't hunch Loki's chest inwards. Placing one hand on his lower back and the other on his chest, Tony nudges them until Loki's posture is better and he nods, looking him up and down. Walking around to the front, he catches Loki's perplexed eyes.

"Formality." Tony repeats thoughtfully, "It is easier to admit secrets to strangers sometimes, isn't it? You don't care as much about rejection."

Loki casts his eyes around, and Tony snaps a finger in his face.

"Eyes on me. When we're talking I want your full attention."

Loki stands up straighter, automatically, his eyes sharp and vulnerable when they meet Tony's. He seems surprised by his own reaction, and that's kind of cute. It makes up Tony's mind.

"In that case, you can call me Mr. Stark." he says, spreading his mouth in a lazy smirk.

Loki's breath hitches, his red eyes closer to black from his blown out pupils. There aren't words for how it affects Tony, the way his response feels transmitted and amplified by the eye contact.

"Go ahead, try it out." Tony grunts, putting his hands in his pockets and tilting his head expectantly. "Let me hear my name in that posh accent."

"Yes, Mister Stark." Loki murmurs, smooth and sophisticated as champagne. His lips look lovely forming the letters, crisp annunciation doing the sharp consonants justice while elongated vowels soften the normally harsh word into something gentle and cultured. He instantly loves it, wants to hear it again and again. Loki's wide eyes dart down after he says it, and Tony follows fast enough to catch Loki's dick twitch against his stomach.

"Perfect." Tony rasps, taken off guard by his mirrored arousal and the twisted way the words make him feel safe. Like he finally has a grip on this situation.

"Thank you, Mister Stark." Loki says, pleased and flustered. This time when their eyes meet there's a wonderful burning need. Under normal circumstances Tony is pretty abysmal at eye contact. His mind operates at two hundred thoughts per minute and he doesn't usually care to get glimpses of people's souls or whatever the superstition is. It's not so hard with Loki, silently begging as he is. He steps into his space and cups his face, leans in as though to kiss but hovers out of reach.

"And what about you? Who do you want to be?"

Loki licks his lip, ears glowing a dark indigo.

"Yours." Loki whispers, his mouth tight with discomfort but trying so hard to open up. He can see the war in Loki's eyes, the yearning to pour his inhibitions into Tony's hands but also the fear, the certainty that he will be found perverse and disgusting.

"In what way? Mine like an object?"

Loki shudders. "Like a consort. A… most trusted advisor."

 _Held in retainer_ Tony recalls. _It is a high honor to serve a respected person._ Scorching affection burns up Tony's back, lights up his imagination as he finally pieces together what Loki tried to tell him. He wasn't referring to ownership at all, he was talking about service. About being valued and valuable in Tony's eyes. Touched, he draws Loki in and holds their foreheads together, eases one hand around the back of Loki's neck and brushes the tips of their noses.

"My consort. My special one." He says into the secret space they've created between them, trying it out. He's doubly rewarded by the unexpected moan Loki croaks out and the deep flare of possessive energy it sparks in him. Saying it out loud feels powerful, like the word transforms them. A suppressed desire finally named and acknowledged.F

Sliding his right hand the rest of the way around Loki's neck, he claims his lips in a kiss that feels like diving underwater, like the pressure in the room rises higher and higher the deeper he plunges into his waiting mouth. Loki surges under him like a riptide, sliding to his knees and pulling Tony down with him. He stays on his feet, enjoys the heady sensation of being taller for once, of looming over him and invading his mouth from above. Loki follows him when he begins to separate, stretching as high as he can on his knees and whimpering when Tony relents and gives him one more sensual scrape of teeth along his bottom lip. At this rate he might never come up.

"Thank you, thank you-" Loki says breathlessly, his skin hot on Tony's lips. A pang of desire spikes in Tony's gut and he doesn't question it, doesn't try to cut it apart and analyze it. He just accepts that for some reason he wants to hear his shiny new pet name flowing out of those tender, kiss-swollen lips.

"Thank you, what?" he growls, squeezing the back of Loki's neck. Molten red eyes flicker shut, and Loki pants. His mouth slacks open and a look of helpless surrender comes over his face.

He stutters, has to start it twice before it comes out smooth. "Thank you, Mister Stark."

"Fucking perfect." Tony says, shuddering around his own overwhelming arousal. The sudden fascination with Loki's lips doesn't abate, and he finds himself pressing his thumb into them, feeling the way the soft flesh gives way to a warm, wet mouth. He drags his finger down Loki's chin and enjoys the stretch, glides back inside and groans when Loki's tongue swirls around his knuckle.

"Oh don't do that, you're giving me ideas." Tony groans. He can't help but imagine his dick sinking into those lips. Loki pulls off and looks up at him with a wary expression.

"You do it for me all the time." Loki says, fidgeting under Tony's scrutiny and chewing the inside of his cheek. "I owe you."

"Not if it grosses you out-"

"It's not-" Loki sighs. He sits back on his heels and clasps his hands in his lap, thumbs looping around each other in a restless tick.

He regrets bringing it up, but it's also kind of shameful that they've been together this long and he still doesn't know. Loki went down on him a couple of times, way in the beginning. Like, way way in the beginning. The first night and the morning after. It was good, as expertly performed as his kissing, but halfway through the second time Loki ran to the bathroom and they never talked about it again. If Tony could go back now, he'd run after him. Would hold his hand and talk through it. But he can't go back, and he didn't do it then, so now they have to clear these landmines, all the stuff they were too chicken shit to talk about when it happened. A bath water warm hand wraps around Tony's ankle and he looks down at Loki's curled up form.

"It is a memory issue." Loki says, turning his head to look at Tony properly. "One that I wish did not trouble me still."

"Long time ago?"

"Very." Loki nods, nuzzling his nose into Tony's hip.

Tony draws his hand down Loki's hair. "You have a lot of those, don't you?"

"Yes, Mister Stark." Loki whispers, subdued and quietly sad.

The title sounds like a request, in this context. Like he's asking Tony to get back to turning off his brain instead of picking at his scars.

He cups the back of Loki's head, skimming through his damp hair. "Would you like to make that a goal? We can work up to it."

Loki squeezes Tony's ankle, and nods against his leg. So sweet, he didn't know Loki could be like this. Even with enhanced strength it isn't easy to pick up a six foot two Jotun, but Tony manages. He lifts him up around his waist and Loki goes along with it, flushing down to his neck and squeezing his legs around Tony's waist. The warmth of those slender limbs encompassing him is scorching, and he buries his face in Loki's neck while it lasts.

Tossing him on his back, Tony ditches his scrubs and crawls on top. Twining their fingers, he places Loki's arms on the mattress above his head and lays a trail of exploring kisses across his chest. Loki sighs in pleasure, but his dick is limp between his splayed legs.

"We can stop, you don't have to-" Tony says.

"I want to. Please." Loki begs, squeezing Tony's hands, "Make me yours."

Tony lays his lead on Loki's chest. He can hear his heart thumping in there, fast and shallow like the beating of a moth's wings.

"It isn't something that I take, it's something you give to me." Tony says, sucking a dark hickey onto Loki's neck.

"Then let me give it." his partner pleads, rutting up against Tony's cock and clamping his legs around his hips. "Whatever you wish, let me give it."

"And what do you get out of it?" Tony asks, "I'm supposed to be repaying you."

Long pianist fingers press hard into Tony's knuckles. Loki's voice is weak.

"Proof." he says weakly, "Proof that I am pleasing to you. That you desire me."

Tony pulls Loki's hands together so he can hold both wrists with one hand and puts all his weight on them. Loki melts at the restriction, visibly revelling in the loss of agency and Tony sucks on his nipples. For long minutes he licks and grazes his teeth over deep purple buds simply because he wants to, because it breaks down Loki's walls like nothing else.

Loki thrashes, keening and whimpering under Tony's mouth and he grows impatient. Grabbing one knee at a time, he throws Loki's legs over his right shoulder and lines himself up. It isn't anything close to fucking, could not possibly replace the sinful tightness of Loki's most intimate places clenching around him, but it's good. Loki moans at the first brush of Tony's cock along his seam, the teasing slide firm enough to spread his lips but not enough to pleasure him.

It's an utterly selfless kind of sex, doesn't give Loki anything in return and that's why Tony chose it. Loki's eyes go glassy as he realizes his body is being used, turned into a tool for Tony's pleasure, and he clenches his thighs. The added tightness sings down Tony's dick and tears a groan out of him, makes him fuck the wet channel of Loki's folds in longer, harder thrusts. Mouthing at the knee slung over his shoulder, he releases Loki's wrists and shoves his legs sideways into the cot.

"Keep your hands up. Don't let them move." Tony says.

"Yes, Mister Stark." Loki moans, still squeezing his legs as tightly as he can. He looks beautiful, his body twisted by the position in a way that makes his breasts jut out proudly and quiver with every breath. No, beautiful isn't adequate, even if he's called him so in the past. It's too precious, too soft. No part of Loki should be described like flower petals or fine china. He's strong, graceful, built of giant's bones ratcheted together by imperious Asgardian pride. The paths of his brain are a tangled mess but Tony understands the function of Loki's dysfunctions. Ordinary neurons could never hope to contain Loki's indestructible heart or his vicious, punch-drunk soul and that's fucking perfect. Tony loves that. He doesn't have time for anything less than extraordinary.

Loki's face is placid, brows drawn with concentration as he times his contractions to Tony's thrusts. Extraordinary. He thinks he could come from that expression alone, from Loki's clear intent to give, and to receive nothing in return. Again he's caught off-guard by this secret generosity, the gentle soul he never knew was there.

His strokes turn brutal when he realizes there's no reason to hold back. He can't hurt Loki, he can't, it's safe. Abandoning restraint, he slams his hips into Loki's thighs and enjoys the filthy, wet slap of his balls on Loki's ass. The trembling gasps Loki makes are maddening and intoxicating. He moans out every breath as though he's actually getting fucked like an animal and just for a few minutes, in the privacy of his mind, Tony imagines that he is.

It feels amazing to cut loose, to push every ounce of his strength into the act and feel Loki take it, love it, love him. When he comes he doesn't expect it, he's just plowing Loki's ass and chanting _mine mine mine_ into his shoulder and then he's shooting all over Loki's abs. It's the most primal, visceral orgasm of his life and it leaves him reeling.

Releasing Loki's legs, Tony waivers over what to do, to say. As his better judgement returns his gut starts to roll like a boiling pot and he presses cautiously at stiff joints, checks Loki's impossibly long legs and finds finger shaped bruises appearing around his knees.

"Oh god, oh god, are you alright? Did I hurt you?"

"Shut up, shut up." Loki complains, spreading his legs so Tony can lay between them and drawing him into an embrace. Soft lips chew and suck on Tony's ear while Loki humps his leg, sighing and carding his fingers through Tony's hair.

"Don't ruin this." Loki whines, "You stupid oaf, don't you dare ruin this before I come."

All the fear and doubt they chased away comes flooding back, and Tony feels like he belongs in this cell. Like he's a single loose screw away from being one of the fucked up degenerates that he hunts down as Iron Man.

"Anthony." Loki growls in his ear, and it startles him. Shakes him out of his mind.

"What the fuck, Loki, what the fuck." Tony whispers, his pulse skyrocketing as he works himself up to a panic. Loki reads his face and scowls.

"Oh Norns, you are the worst." Loki says, throwing his head back on the mattress and kicking Tony off him, shoving him into the wall. Tony stares at him, feeling even worse. Loki is pissed, glaring at him in frustration and tugging half-heartedly on his cock like he doesn't much care about it anymore.

"Sorry-" Tony says automatically. It just slips out after a lifetime of disappointing people. The look gives Loki pause and he rolls his eyes, shuffling to the edge of the bed to make room. Grabbing Tony by the scruff, he yanks him onto the cot and straddles his waist. His sharp nailed fingers hold Tony firmly by the chin.

"You imbecile, you've done nothing wrong beyond ruin a perfectly good orgasm."

"I don't know what just happened." Tony says, wide eyed.

"You enjoyed yourself immensely and no harm was done." Loki replies, "I am well, you are well, it is fine."

"Shit you're mad a me again. I'm already screwing this up."

"And you will again in the future. I pardon you on both counts." Loki sighs, his free hand coming to jerk lightly at his dick, "Now get me off, won't you?"

Tony can't help but laugh at Loki's irreverence, at his pendulum swing from paralyzing inhibition to frustrated profanity. _Changes in behavior_ he thinks, and nudges Loki to sit on his face.

The scent of him invades Tony's nose and he groans, laving wide licks over his folds and inviting Loki to seat himself with a touch to his ass. The sensation of being surrounded by Loki settles him, and the practiced motions of eating out give him something else to focus on while he absorbs what just happened. It takes a few toe-curling licks for Loki to start rubbing in earnest, but when he does everything gets more intense and more enthralling. Loki makes all Tony's favorite noises and trembles when he circles his cock with his fist and strokes his leaking slit.

"Oh, Tony-" he moans, undulating wildly as his body tenses and arches. "Norns, I'm close."

 _Do it, come for me_ he would say, if he wasn't happily suffocating. Instead he jerks rough and fast at the cock in his hand and holds his breath while Loki clenches and yelps. When the final waves of orgasm settle, Tony feels gloriously filthy. Licking at the mess he made of Loki's entrance, he sucks at the base of his cock just a bit longer and hums into the skin. He can't explain it, but he never feels more intimate with Loki than this, not even when other parts of him are buried inside. Loki pets him fondly and separates himself, grimacing at the glistening sheen he leaves on Tony's cheeks. He grins up at him.

"What do you think, are we even?" Tony croaks.

"Just so." Loki whispers, trailing his fingers down Tony's face and hesitating before continuing down to his beard. He wrinkles his nose but stays there, considering.

"It seems we are more perverse than even we knew." Loki drawls. His lip twists, and Tony wonders why. Then he bends forward and kisses Tony, very quickly but with sincerity, pussy juices and all. Tony thinks he might keel over and die right there.


	14. Chapter 14

When Loki lays down he's a wash of loose limbs and somber eyes. Pushy arms maneuver Tony into being the little spoon, and as much as it's a dream come true it also freaks him out. Normally post-coital cuddling is something he has to extract from Loki while he's too sleepy and sated to argue. But today Loki presses himself head to toe against Tony's back and clutches him around the waist like he thinks they can merge into one person if he squeezes hard enough. Tony doesn't say a word, afraid he might break the spell and lose this unexpected gift.

After a minute he sucks it up and leans off the cot to snag the soaked sheet off the floor, and those strong arms drag him back in. Loki tolerates the distance only long enough for Tony to wipe the incriminating smear off his belly and then snatches the fabric. The scratch of the rough cotton on Tony's face is abrasive and he's willing to bet his cheeks are glowing with rug burn, but he accepts the favor in the spirit it is given. Loki's face is expressively blank, his signature look, and meeting his eyes is like sitting by a window on a rainy day.

"You know what you did was wrong, don't you? I don't need to spell it out." Tony asks.

"I felt you die." Loki says defensively, touching a hand to Tony's chest, "Your wards disappeared, all my protective charms-"

"I get that, but-" Tony sighs, "There is no excuse for this. You know you can tell me anything, I know you do. So when you choose to control and manipulate instead, that's on you. That's you choosing to hurt me."

Loki's face crumbles and he pulls Tony's hand to his chest. At first he thinks Loki wants to read his feelings, but then his fingers press into Tony's pulse and stay there. He presses his ear to Tony's chest and the only reasonable thing to do is stroke Loki's back and allow him to listen to his busted heartbeat.

"You are here but my magic does not recognize you. It reaches for you. It mourns you so loudly I cannot think."

"Bullshit. You were thinking." Tony spits, "You knew exactly what you were doing."

Loki's eyes cloud with a vital need for Tony to stop pushing, to scoop him up and fix this, but he just feels castrated. All this time, and Loki still doesn't get that this is a two person system. That there are no winners and losers, and it is possible for both of them to get what they need without tricks and traps. Tony isn't asking for much here, just basic care and respect. Hard limits. Loki shakes his head and digs his nose into the valley of Tony's collarbone.

"I would have done terrible things to steal you back from Death. I could feel myself slipping-"

"Calm down. Come on, deep breaths." Tony whispers, taking in deep inhales that raise and lower Loki's head in time. He does not follow along.

"Your vision shall be a false one." Loki swears, squeezing Tony's hand so tight it cuts off his circulation. "I will not lose you again."

Tony pulls his hand away and wraps his thumb around the base of a horn, holds Loki's ear flush to his chest. Loki worms his fingers between the mattress and Tony's back and clings.

"I feel the same. So promise me. No more hurting yourself, no more stupid fights."

"You know I cannot promise that." Loki whines. Distraught. Hopeful. "I will never be a well person, Tony. I can't change-"

"You already have." he insists, wrapping both hands around Loki's white-lined shoulders. His stupid heart gushes indignation and sincerity, and he doesn't try to hide it. He wants Loki to feel his belief.

His partner is so far evolved from that first night in the penthouse. He recalls every detail, from the long slit up Loki's dress to the cherry red lipstick that turned her mouth into a bullfighter's flag. The bottomless void in her eyes that screamed define me define me i don't know why i'm here. Tony sees no resemblance. She's barely a fragment of the proud, sensitive, smart-ass that came to Nebraska and bitched him back to his feet. From the man that pulled Tony's head to his lap and put air back in his lungs.

Loki is so much greater than he thinks he can be, and Tony knows there's more where that came from. There's the father that wears his son like a bracelet, and the mother that kisses her daughter's temple and tells her not to grow up so quickly. There's the hard nosed negotiator that reads every word of every contract, and there's also the quiet, yearning boy that clutches Tony's ankle and begs for restoration. His Loki is a crowd of remarkable people all struggling to be one person, and Tony doesn't see why that should be a bad thing. Why everyone acts like being changeable automatically makes Loki unreliable.

"I will hurt you again." Loki says, pleading with his eyes for Tony to see reason and agree that he's a repulsive stain on the universe.

"I know you will." Tony says, simply. He leaves it unspoken that he doesn't care, that his loyalty does not have a time limit or a self-improvement quota. He only needs Loki to try, that's all.

"You are insane." Loki says. He looks lost, eyes flitting over Tony's face in search of answers he already gave.

"Let's leave that for the biographers to decide."

Loki purses his lips, and his eyes soften. "No more hurting myself. No more fights."

"Stupid fights." Tony corrects with a pointed finger, "Let's not get over zealous here."

Loki laughs like the sound is a convict escaping from prison.

"No, we mustn't set standards too high." he says.

Tony runs a thumb over the intersection of Loki's eyebrow and his horn, and leans in to kiss his forehead. Loki sighs, and his shoulders fall entire inches from the relief of tension.

"And what about me, am I forgiven?" Tony asks, a bit of boyish hope creeping in, eyebrows waggling.

"If we are now in the practice of quoting one another." Loki drawls, "Then it was a foolish, insane, reckless, and unforgivable thing to do."

"Hey, that's not what I said at all-"

Loki huffs, rolling his eyes. "It is close enough!"

"But it was the right thing to do?" Tony checks, grinning and tilting his head.

"It is a powerful boon, even if I detest it." Loki sniffs, and climbs off Tony's lap as daintily as a Victorian maiden stepping out of a carriage.

"Straight flush." Tony says, triumphantly laying a fan of five etched steel playing cards on the floor.

His CAT scan will probably look like someone spilled a bag of Skittles in his brain, but after an hour of pacing Tony decided boredom was the more present danger. The hole in the wall is now a rather stately arch, and the neat stack of metal playing cards he made from the excess steel is so architectural and sleek that he kind of wants to mass produce them.

"I loathe this game." Loki grouses, his pale Aesir hand flicking his own cards into the discard pile.

Tony sniggers. "How is the god of lying this bad at poker?"

"What good is bluffing between two players?" Loki says tartly, "It is entirely luck of the draw."

Leaning back on his hands, Tony watches Loki deal out the top fifteen cards in a line between them. From the first five he pushes two out of line.

"You return two, completing your flush." Loki says, correctly predicting Tony's move and pointing to the two cards he would have drawn. "Dealer returns three, granting a pair of kings. Congratulations, love, you've won without touching a card."

"Fine, you pick a game." Tony grumbles.

Loki pouts as he gathers the scattered deck. "All the games I know require exploding cards."

Tony enjoys the mental image of a young Loki throwing exploding cards in his brother's face. For all his complaining, he clearly knows his way around a deck. Deft hands shuffle the slivers of steel as if they were ordinary paper, separating them into stacks and riffling them together in a mesmerizing cycle. After a few repetitions he starts absently cutting the deck one handed and watches the smooth flow of his fingers with an airy smile.

"These are exquisitely balanced." he says earnestly, and okay, Tony might preen a bit.

The thought of kid Loki doesn't leave his head as easily as it came, and Tony finds himself wondering what that was like. That reminds him of his own brats, and he stumbles a bit over an unfamiliar pang of homesickness.

"Hey, I know I just asked like, twenty minutes ago-"

Loki sighs, but his lips quirk up. "The children are with Miss Potts, you needn't hover."

Even as he says it, he summons up a glowing green orb. Four figures emerge as the orb flattens into a disc and shapes rise from it. Pepper stands in the center with Hela beside her, talking. The boys flit in and out, running wildly through the radius of Loki's spell.

Tony thinks there's something different about their blurry shapes but he can't put his finger on it until Jori skids to a stop in front of Pepper. He's holding a little dress on a hanger. She nods, and Hela bends over to show him the zipper in the back of the garment.

Tony looks up at Loki, certain he's wearing a dopey smile, and meets careful blankness.

"I wondered when they'd get curious." Tony murmurs.

"I hoped they wouldn't." Loki says stiffly. "It would be easier for them."

They watch the glowing illusion, eyes tracking the energetic movement of Fenrir spinning in a circle skirt while Jori picks up the hem of his dress and drops it again and again, fascinated by the way the fabric billows. The projection flickers and Loki tenses, puts more force into the spell until it solidifies.

Tony leans in, frowning for a couple different reasons. "You know it's okay these days, right? There are, like, parades and stuff."

"I know." Loki says, and the illusion flickers again, more violently. The energy dissipates into grey green smoke and he shakes out his hands, wringing them like they hurt. Tony observes the movement, unsure if he ought to pry.

"Alright?"

Loki brushes his hair out of his face and sits a bit straighter.

"Drained." he says simply, and angles an expectant look at Tony. "Another game?"

Two player card games, now that Tony thinks about it, are all pretty lame. War could be fun, but he suspects Loki would have the same beef with it as poker. There's not really much strategy to slapping the floor. Then he recalls a game he used to play with Mr. Jarvis when their limo was stuck in traffic, and later on in college once he was old enough to go to parties.

"Ever played Slaps?"

"Sounds violent." Loki mutters, scratching at his jaw where a faint dusting of stubble is just starting to show.

Tony grins. "Oh you are gonna love this. This is the most Loki game ever invented. Gimme your hands."

Shimmying closer, he mirrors Loki's crossed legs and holds his hands out like a waiter without a tray. Perplexed, Loki glances between Tony's face and hands and cautiously lays his on top.

"Ok, so the first person to ten wins." he says cheerfully, and without warning flips both hands over to slap Loki's. His partner scowls, instinctively pulling his hands back to his lap, and looks at Tony like he kicked a puppy.

"What was that for?" he demands, so honestly affronted that Tony has to laugh. Fucking literal Asgardians.

"Come on, put 'em back." Tony coaxes, "This time you slap."

Loki licks his lip, studying Tony's face and sliding his hands back to the center. Tony takes his hands and flips them, laying his own hands on top.

"I fail to see the object of this." Loki says.

"Just go for it." Tony says, and barely manages to escape Loki's attack a split second later. "Not bad, my turn again."

This time when Loki puts his hands out, Tony waits a few seconds. Hovering an inch or so below, he lets his hands wave a bit and notices how Loki's focus catches on the movement.

"See now you know I'm gonna slap you, but you don't know when." Tony says, meeting Loki's eyes and watching the pulse point in his throat quiver as tension rises. "Kind of exciting, yeah?"

"If you say so." Loki mutters, but he's full of shit. He's into it already, arms poised and lips pressed thin with concentration. Tony brushes Loki's palms with his fingertips and he jerks away, half jumping.

"Gotcha!" Tony says, "That's called a cheat. You can only do that three times, or you lose."

"So I'm meant to willingly offer my hands for this abuse?"

"No, you just have to react faster." Tony teases. He grabs Loki's wrists and pulls his hands back with a firm touch, turns them over the right way and slips his hands underneath. Loki frowns, arms stiff and ready.

Tony should probably mention that he was the MIT Slaps champion, but when you're playing a game with Loki half the fun is stacking the deck. He is one hundred percent guaranteed to cheat, so winning becomes less about playing the game and more about cheating better than him.

Wiggling his fingers, he notices Loki's shoulders tense. That's the trick of the game, reading opponents. Priming them to expect a certain outcome and then doing the opposite. Loki's high strung, expecting Tony's next move to be a strike. Moving just one hand, he feignts and his partner reels his hands back lightening quick.

"Cheat." Tony chuckles, and Loki huffs. His eyes are sharp, mouth quirked in a sour frown dusted with faint black stubble, and this time he offers his hands of his own volition.

"When do I return the favor?" Loki asks.

"When I miss." Tony says, throwing his shoulder forward in a whole body fake out. Loki flinches, but he just barely keeps his hands in. Most people relax after a sleight, their minds fighting to keep their hands in place despite surges of adrenaline and cortisol. Loki is one of them, so Tony takes advantage and nails him rather hard with a cross over slap. Loki laughs at the stinging impact, shaking his hand and half grinning.

"That was one handed!" he accuses.

"Never said I had to use both hands." Tony smirks, and when he meets Loki's eye he knows he chose well. It's exactly the cocktail of strategy, manipulation, and danger that Loki gets off on. Harmless mischief, but with enough sting to get the blood pumping.

Loki shakes his head and smiles wide. "This is a devilish little game."

"Human children. Natural born sadists." Tony jokes. As soon as they are back in position he swings, aiming for a surprise attack. Loki is faster though, and he beams when Tony's hands fly through empty space.

"My turn!" he says with sparkling eyes, eagerly extending his hands and wiggling his fingers. Tony melts at the bright expression, the childish glee, and indulgently puts his hands out.

Loki imitates his technique. He taunts him with slight movements and finger brushing but Tony doesn't fall for it. It's easy to see through because Loki doesn't know to lie with his whole body yet, he's only thinking about his hands. When his shoulder starts to move Tony knows it's a real blow and withdraws. Loki still clips his fingertips though, and his face is so pleased that Tony gives him the point.

They return to the middle and this time Loki has his own ideas. His hands are perfectly still, not even the slightest tremor, and it is actually quite unnerving. It creates a restless kind of anticipation that's totally different from the twitchy, jumpy energy Tony aims for.

"It is curiously enthralling." Loki says with a sweet smile, "Like being spanked."

Tony's mind derails. Then a loud crack echoes off the walls and his hands sting. He rubs at the pulsing pain and Loki smiles with all his teeth.

"Problem, darling?"

"Cheap trick." Tony says, grumbling but impressed.

"Effective." Loki counters, sticking his hands back out. Tony rejoins him, and now the floodgates are open for whatever taboo experiences Loki is willing to share in the name of winning.

"I was flogged once." Loki brags. Slap, hit.

"Only the once. My laughter so disturbed the tutor that he never punished me again."

"Bet you were a handful."

"I am still a handful." Loki corrects, "In fact I am two, as you well know."

Slap, hit.

"And then some." Tony mutters with a wry smile.

Loki's mouth twitches and Tony jerks his hands back for no reason at all.

"Cheat!" Loki yells, grinning. Tony palms his face in disappointment but he's smiling underneath.

Their hands go back to center, but now there's a charged undercurrent. Both of them are hyper aware, attentive to every tiny twitch and tremor, and listening with rapt focus to the back and forth of their bantering. Topics which would normally send Loki blushing to the next room get swung around like toy swords as they try to best each other. Ball gags, handcuffs, threesomes, one incident where Loki apparently saved Thor's life by giving a troll a foot job. Everything gets thrown on the table and it's fun. Really fun.

"I like this game very much." Loki proclaims during his second turn, adjusting his posture and very nearly making Tony cheat again.

"You like anything that involves risk." Tony observes, picking out a common theme to Loki's rather objectionable exploits in unnegotiated kink.

"And you only like it disguised in games." Loki challenges. His foot grazes Tony's leg under their outstretched arms and Tony jumps.

"Well yeah." Tony says, considering his answer even as Loki distracts him with his foot and runs one finger down the middle of each hand. "When you know you're safe, risk is exciting. Otherwise it's just, well, risky."

"I've never had cause to differentiate."

Slap, miss. Tony's turn.

"Maybe it's time you did." Tony suggests, "There's not a lot I won't do if it's fun and I know it's safe."

Loki's breath hitches, his pulse thumping in his neck as he holds out his hands. When Tony puts his under, Loki drops his fingers to dance on his wrist.

"Then I would be wise to make you feel very safe indeed." Loki murmurs.

Tony takes his turn, distracted. Loki is getting flushed in his face as well as his hands now, his posture relaxed and eyes burning Tony on the inside.

Slap, hit. Slap, hit. Slap, miss. Loki's turn.

Loki hesitates, licking his bottom lip absently as he watches Tony watch him.

"I think this game would be much improved if it were always your turn." Loki whispers, and scores three points in a row while Tony's head spins.

They end up on the floor side by side, red handed and a bit manic. His not-fiance tips his head sideways after a minute and openly checks him out. The unique pressure of being watched tingles over his body, but he doesn't meet Loki's gaze. He pretends not to notice and allows himself to be seen, stripped of any artifice by frumpy ill-fitting scrubs and skin-bleaching overhead lights.

In nine months he's not sure they've ever spent this much time completely focused on one another. No machines or tablets or children or Avengers, nothing to do but appreciate this person they've chosen out of millions and millions of beings in the universe. Loki reaches for him and a cool touch turns his head. His cheek touches the floor and when he blinks his whole vision becomes pale skin and wild hair.

"I've not done something so frivolous since I was a child." he says, working his jaw and lowering his brows like he's apologizing for something.

Tony smiles boldfaced and wrung out. For once no words bubble up to fill the silence. There's an energy in the room that is almost spiritual. The electric zing of Tony's psyche tuning to Loki's like a dial on a radio. His lover swallows, helplessly open while his eyes skitter over Tony's unguarded face.

"Will you teach me more devilish games, Mister Stark?" he asks, breathy and fragile.

"Of course, Loki."

What a preposterous question. He can't deny this person anything, not a damn thing.

Loki's answering smile is watery and free.

Aluminum cafeteria trays slide through a flap in the security door a few hours later, weighed down with soggy, bland, preservative-loaded rations just like mom used to make. Loki must really be flagging because he tucks in to the sloppy brown mush masquerading as chili without so much as a sneer, and slathers a stack of crackers in jalapeño cheese spread with even more fervor.

With a bit less enthusiasm, Tony picks at his own watery meat soup and manages to choke down about half of it with the help of some very salty crackers. He can practically hear Bruce lecturing him about his sodium intake, and that actually makes the whole thing palatable. Few things taste as good to Tony Stark as petty rebellion.

By the time Tony has choked down about as much chili as he can stand, Loki's tray is spotless and he's casting longing glances at Tony's cornbread. As if. That dry square of sweet, sweet carbohydrates is about the only thing on offer that Tony actually likes. His favorite bag of cats will have to man up and ask if he wants so much as a nibble. Frankly, even then it would probably be a no.

Tony makes sure to take his time slathering the thing in butter. It earns him the most pathetic yearning look he's ever seen, and when he's done he stalls a bit longer just because it's fucking hilarious to watch a fully grown demigod beg with his eyes like a spoiled chihuahua.

"Something wrong, Slugger?" Tony asks, holding the crumbley bread in his left hand while he slurps loudly at the bottom of his juice box. Loki is shredding a napkin between his crossed legs, and he doesn't seem aware that he's doing it.

Loki sniffs, and says arrogantly, "Your people's standard of cuisine is deplorable."

"The crackers weren't bad." Tony shrugs, and drops the empty juice box on his tray.

"One can hardly live on squares of baked wheat." Loki pouts.

Tony suppresses a smirk. That sounded less like a genuine complaint and more like Loki telling himself not to want the cornbread. Tony takes a bite and smirks when Loki's eyes follow the rain of yellow crumbs falling onto the tray.

"You sure you're okay?" he asks, maybe a little meanly. "You seem antsy."

"Human portions are so small." Loki huffs, leaning his elbows on his knees. The sincere disappointment in his slouch makes Tony feel a bit bad for messing with him. Even by human standards, it was a pretty pathetic meal.

"Well I'm full. You might as well have the rest." Tony lies, setting the mostly uneaten bread in the remaining chili and sliding the tray in front of Loki. Dusting the crumbs off his fingers, he grabs the frosted diner cups from both of their trays and goes to refill them in the sink. The increasingly familiar sensation of Loki looking at him creeps up his back, and he just watches water pour out the tap. He can be selfless once a decade or so, it's not illegal yet.

Taking a long drink from one glass he twists off the tap and turns to say as much, but the words don't make it out. One second he's leaning on the sink to deliver a self-deprecating wisecrack, and the next he's falling face first into the opposite wall along with Loki and every object in the room that isn't nailed down.

Loki hits first with a hollow metallic thump, and Tony almost lands on top of him. Fortunately eight years of vigilante justice have turned catching himself with his repulsors into muscle memory, and he puts his hands out on instinct. The impact he expects never comes, and when he looks down he is shooting small jets of gold energy out of his hand arrays.

"Neat." Tony says, meeting Loki's wide eyes with a boyish grin. The white room turns red from spinning emergency lights and a piercing alarm blares at an ear splitting volume. Distant explosions rock the ship and the room shakes.

"Expecting company?" Tony yells over the din.

"Not as such!" Loki replies.

The nearby turbine engine roars and the ship rights itself with a groan of torqued metal. Loki slides down the wall to the floor in a pile of rubbish and Tony cuts off his thrusters, landing hard on his bare feet.

Pulling Loki up by the arm, he scans the detritis for his blinder shades.

"Suit up?"

"Obviously." Loki groans, rubbing where his head hit the wall. Shaking out his hands, he summons the shimmery gold magic which usually accompanies a change of clothes. Golden threads start to materialize along his arms, tracing the line of his shoulders and arching into the curves of his horned helm. And then flicker out.

"Not a word." Loki growls, shoving past him and stalking into the other room where he left his boots and armor.

"One in five!" Tony calls, just to get the obligatory joke out of his system.

Loki doesn't dignify that with a response. Looking back down, Tony kicks around the mess of playing cards, food wrappers, and bed sheets until he finds his glasses and wipes them off on his shirt. His shoes are easier to locate, tossed in a pile with the blindfold tangled in one of the laces. On a whim he balls up the rough scrap of linen and buries it in his pants pocket just in case the glasses get damaged. By the time Loki rounds the corner fully dressed, Tony's ready too.

"If anyone asks we're popping out for milk and scratchers." Tony says, sliding the hillbilly glasses up his nose and activating the targeting system. Walking briskly toward the security door, he tries the handle on the off chance it isn't locked. No dice.

A reverent voice comes over the carrier intercom, a smooth tenor that sounds almost prayer-like. "Hear me, and rejoice. You are about to die at the hands of the children of Thanos."

"Ah, shit." Tony mutters.

Loki dashes to his right and wraps a hand tight around his wrist.

"We have to get off this ship." he says urgently.

"Be thankful," the voice continues, "-for the lack of purpose which has always haunted your nightmares and plagued your sanity ends today."

"I think this guy drank the wrong flavor of Kool-Aid." Tony says. Beside him, Loki's hands fly in frantic casting gestures. He repeats the same sequence over and over to no avail, growing more agitated with each failure and straining to pull power from his core that he just doesn't have.

"Woah, take it easy." Tony says, seizing Loki's hands and holding them motionless. "You're juiced, pushing harder won't help."

Fearful eyes meet Tony's and at first he's not sure what the big deal is. Sure, it's got to be freaky not to have magic at a time like this, but Loki's just exhausted. It'll come back. Then he breaks down the rapid movements Loki was making and his gut sinks as he recognises the spell. Dreading the confirmation of what he already knows, he drops his gaze to his partner's neck. His bare neck, devoid of the locket that he tucks away in hammer space when it's not in use. Devoid of the Space Stone.

The melodic voice croons over the tinny speakers. "Today your deaths serve a noble role in delivering peace and prosperity to the universe. Embrace your fate, chosen lambs, with dignity and pride."

"Bet he won't sound so preachy with a fist in his face." Tony mutters, pulling up his arrays and stepping up to the security door.

Loki shakes his head, stepping back. "I cannot fight in this state, are you mad?"

"This ship is full of civilians. Running isn't an option." Tony says, jaw tight.

"Sod the mortals, they are here for the stones. To kill us while we are weak." Loki hisses.

"Mortals?" Tony spits, because he knows that's a slur coming from Loki. Shaking his head, he turns back to the door and liquifies the lock. It slides up easily, and Tony moves on the the next one. "I'm human too, Reindeer Games, in case you forgot."

Loki's nostrils flare at the nickname, and Tony knows he would be shooting magic missiles if he wasn't out of batteries. Good riddance, then. He'd still have magic if he hadn't lost his mind this morning, terrific fucking timing that turned out to be. Tony's anger bolsters up the stone's power and the second lock melts in half the time. Prying his fingers into the jam, Tony wrenches the door open with three heaves and finally he's free.

Stepping into the cell block, he wills his glasses to give him a bit more information. Walls, doors, anything moving. A blue wireframe of the space appears on his blinders just in time for the power to cut out. His glasses automatically switch to night vision, sweet.

"Blast it all." Loki swears behind him, and Tony hears him collide with something solid. A rather vindictive part of him thrills at the poetic justice. It doesn't feel very good to walk around blind without a guide, does it Lokes? He nearly says it out loud too, but it's not worth the fallout. They literally just promised to stop having stupid fights.

Opting to be the bigger person, Tony turns and alters the coding on his glasses to always show him Loki in perfect detail. The stone's afraid of him, only works half as well when he's around, so it's pretty much impossible to hurt him on accident. Loki's pained face appears first, the rest of him cascading down to where his shin collided with the door jam. He grabs Loki's hand and guides it to his wrist.

"I can see." Tony grunts, pulling Loki along behind him, each of their footsteps echoing loudly off the cavernous space. Looking around, he sees for the first time that the holding cells are a free standing structure built into the side of the freight deck. It's the lowest level of the helicarrier, spaced evenly between the four engines to distribute the weight of the massive supply containers and out-of-commission vehicles. Belatedly he feels some regret for their ill-timed sexcapades. With these acoustics half the helicarrier probably heard them grunting and moaning like wildebeests.

Another explosion rocks the upper decks and the carrier tilts, throwing he and Loki into the cell block walls. Cursing, he drags Loki up and leans on the wall for balance, walking as fast as he can to the elevator on the far end of the hall.

"If you insist on running towards battle, you should at least consider whose side you're on." Loki spits in his ear.

"The right one." Tony replies just as sharply, and steps over an overturned linen cart.

Loki yanks his hand out of Tony's grasp. "You heard the Children on the speaker. If you were to ask I am certain they would say they are the right side."

Tony stalks the last five steps to the elevator and rubs his temples. Tries to figure out if he can restore power to an entire elevator shaft at once. Muffled screams echo through the ceiling and his gut clenches.

"Fine, then the human side." Tony growls, raising his hands and imagining a bubble of perfectly functioning technology around the elevator. The stone whines in protest, but it answers, a rippling line passing around he and Loki and abruptly turning on the overhead light above the landing.

"In my experience, fighting for the side which imprisons you generally leads back to a cell when the conflict is over." Loki says icily.

"Then screw it, I'm on my own side." Tony shouts, frustrated, "It doesn't matter. I'm on whatever side gets us and the civilians out alive."

Tony hammers the elevator call button, and by pure luck the car happens to be on their floor. The doors slide open, and a column of blinding light casts long shadows off their bodies. He pulls Loki in behind him and plots a course for the bridge based on his dusty memories of the layout.

"Thanos is a powerful ally, and we have what he wants. We would be wise to surrender and bargain." Loki sneers into the sudden quiet of the elevator. Tony squeezes his eyes shut and palms his face. "I am not fit, my stone is inaccessible, and Ebony Maw is on board. This is a lost fight."

The car rises when Tony presses the button for the top deck, and the sphere of magic rises with them. It moves at a snail's pace, a fraction of a normal elevator speed. Loki waits for him to answer, his shoes creaking on the elevator floor as he nervously shifts his weight.

"Well?" he demands.

"I'm not bargaining with a galaxy ruling maniac." Tony says, dropping his hand. "If it goes tits up, we can steal a Quinjet."

Loki's hands clench at his sides, his jaw tight.

"Then I will acquire the ship while you satisfy your martyr complex." Loki says.

The mere suggestion has Tony's heart skipping beats. If he turns his back on Loki for five seconds, he'll be gone. Whether it's true or not, fair or unfair, that's what he thinks. It's a conditioned response like Pavlov's dog. Before he knows what he's doing, he's standing in Loki's space.

"No, you stay with me. I don't want you leaving my side." he says forcefully. Loki steps away, his back against the wall.

"I am all but defenseless, Tony, I have two daggers that I cannot even return to my hand without magic."

Tony's palms are clammy, his neck beading with cold sweat. He works his jaw around all the words fighting to get out and feels utterly pinned down. He's damned either way.

"Who is Maw?" he asks, dodging the question.

Loki pivots his head away angrily. "He is the telepath. A sorcerer. Torturer. He will read your attacks from your mind before you perform them, and have a counter ready."

"So improvise and I'm golden, got it." Tony says.

The doors open before Loki can reply, and the sight on the other side silences them both.

Sparks fly from severed electrical cables, showers of white in the dark hanger. Small pockets of light flicker from fires burning out of the cockpits of destroyed rescue shuttles, and in the middle of the wreckage are Thor and Rogers locked in a bare knuckle brawl with a man the size of the Hulk. Past them are Clint and Natasha locked in a battle with the horned alien that invaded Tony's penthouse. And beyond that screaming and chaos. A rioting mass of civilians running and trampling one another like schools of fish avoiding a shark.

Tony runs. It's an impulsive decision, the knee jerk need to act like the hero he claims to be. While he runs his suit materializes around him as naturally as breathing, fabricating itself fluidly up his legs and around his back, swirling around his shoulders and crashing between his fingers like little waves of titanium and circuitry.

"Tony, I need a weapon!" Loki calls, "A sword, a gun, anything, this is madness."

To his right, the big guy has Thor by his head. He's swinging him around like a club and beating Captain America with him. He has a massive scythe in his main hand and Tony twists his wrist to shatter the weapon into a pile of scrap. Noticing that Steve doesn't have his shield, he reforms the metal into a crude targe and flings it at him.

"Catch, Rogers!" he calls, ducking under a broken support beam and leaping over a stack of weapons crates on the other side.

Loki follows, his long legs easily carrying him over the crates in one leap.

"Stay with me." Tony pants, "I'm getting you a spear."

By the time he gets to Midnight, Widow is on the ground. It's hard to tell in the dark, but she looks injured. Clint is standing over her, firing arrow after arrow. His shots don't penetrate her armor, and he has to duck periodically to avoid the boomerang spear. Tony uses her distraction to close the distance.

Clint fires an arrow that glances off Midnight's horns, and Tony strikes while he has the element of surprise. Firing the repulsors, he gets up to speed and lands a pushing kick to Midnight's back. She hits the floor hand and tumbles, digging her spear into the concrete floor to slow her descent into a crouched landing. Immediately she launches herself back, spear tip first and coming fast.

A repulsor blast knocks her off target, and he bats the spear aside with his forearm, angling the opposite into an elbow strike to the nose. The horns, he has to admit, are pretty practical. They make almost any blow to her head or ears pointless, but her nose is as vulnerable and full of blood vessels as anyone else's. The rocket boosted blow hits her hard and she falls flat, her grip loosening enough for him to rip the spear from her hand. Loki skids to a stop beside him, gasping. Tony holds the spear out for him to take.

"You shouldn't have." Loki huffs, snatching it by the middle.

"Only the best for my consort." Tony replies, eyeing the wall of rubble between him and the crowd of trapped civilians "I'm going in. Wanna ride?"

"I've already had one today, thank you." Loki says, brushing his messy hair back and glancing around.

"Yeah, we know." Clint groans from a few feet away. "I'd tell you to get a room, but you two need a fucking soundproof bomb shelter. Jesus Christ."

"Boys, the sorcerer?" Natasha calls, struggling to keep the stronger alien on the ground.

"On it." Tony says, speeding toward the far end of the hanger where he could now hear the pops of gunfire, and the cacophonous screams of terrified Sokovians. The dismantled shells of rescue shuttles litter the area and block off all the exits, corralling the civilians in a giant pen.

At the end of the hanger, a double set of glass and steel stairs climb up to the bridge, and a line of ex-agents and Fury stand guard up there, guns drawn and firing. The alien stands in a mess of people all fighting to get away, walking passively over the fallen bodies of his victims as though they are nothing but mounds of dirt.

The blades of a dismantled turbine spin around him like a hundred machetes, cutting through anyone who fails to run fast enough. The bullets from the agent's guns ricochet off the blades and catch random victims. It's utter carnage, an unmitigated massacre.

"Hey, Ugly!" Tony shouts, flying over the crowd as fast as he can. He lands hard directly in front of Squidward. This must be the telepath, the one that predicts combat moves. Shouldn't be too hard, Tony never has a plan anyway.

"Anthony Edward Stark." the alien says, the turbine blades sweeping out in a pass that would be beautiful if it weren't slicing people in half. Tony summons up a barrage of missiles and fires them, blows up every blade he can see.

"Hands up, Chris Angel. Show's over."

"Oh, I see. You are Tony. The lying welp's new master." Maw says, "Tony. Y not, backwards. What might that say about you?"

For some reason that lame ass threat creeps him out. Goosebumps crawl up his arms at the esoteric armchair psychology and the fucking disgusting implications about he and Loki's relationship.

"Where is the little traitor god?" Maw wonders out loud, "I would hate to kill his owner while he isn't watching. His fragile mind is such a handicap, he will be much more useful once I break it."

Tony fires a missile point blank, but he knows before it even leaves the chamber that it's useless. Maw disintegrates it with nothing more than a wiggle of his fingers and reshapes the dust into needle like shards. In an instant they surround Tony, their points piercing into his armor and slowly burrowing closer to his skin.

"He isn't anyone's tool." Tony growls, trying to melt the needles but finding a resistance that he's never encountered before. Pushing harder with his mind, the pressure seems to double and redirect back on him.

Maw smiles wide, "Bold words, but you doubt. Don't lie to a telepath, Tony, we always know."

Tony flinches at the use of his name, tries again to push the needles away and the power behind them feels like a hairbrush dragging on his brain.

"Anthony!" Loki shouts, his voice muffled by the noise of the panicked crowd. Tony doesn't dare look back, but he can't stop the way his tension unravels at Loki's presence. Maw's face shifts into a cruel grin.

"The starring role has arrived." Maw says in a sing-song voice, "Let the show begin."

Loki lets out a war cry behind him, and Tony smirks. "You asked for it, cupcake."

The recently re-gifted spear flies over Tony's left shoulder and he cuts the cord on the Aether. Power surges inside him, a wild rush of gnashing teeth and chaotic fury and he surrenders himself to it. Iron Man melts off his body and becomes tendrils of blood red exploding outward. It destroys the concrete needles and throws Maw into the air.

"Stark, the civilians." Fury shouts, and Tony grits his teeth. His glasses block out the crowd, it's too risky, but without vision he has no concept of how many people are trapped in the combat zone. He throws wild attacks of pure energy knowing that he could be hitting people along with the enemy, and praying desperately that he isn't. Echoes of death and destruction reverberate off the walls and the stone thrills at wreaking havoc. It's everything Tony can do to hold the reins and steer.

Loki crashes into Tony's side and the sudden detail of his face clears Tony's head, his eyes sucking him in like a homing beacon.

"The shuttles, you imbecile, clear the shuttles so the humans can run."

Tony nods, turns back to where he flew over the wrecked shuttles, but a warbling laugh draws his attention upward. Maw hovers above them with his arms wide, apparently he can do that. A wave of his hand gathers a mass of scrap metal and engine parts and a second gesture sends it all falling on top of he and Loki.

Scraping at his brain for something harmless that falls from the ceiling, he pictures confetti. For some reason that's what comes to mind, and Tony tells the stone it's time to party. The mass of falling debris morphs into square scraps of fluttering foil and suddenly the hanger is littered with tissue paper like Time Square on New Years Eve.

"Which shuttles?" Tony asks, blind again. The glasses are glitching, unsure which shuttles to show as important and which ones are noise. His own confusion clouds the interface and turns it into useless black plastic. Loki's hand comes into his periphery and points. Two wireframe models of shuttles appear where he indicates, and Tony puts his hands out.

"Cover me for a minute." Tony says.

"Yes, because a glowing skewer will do so much against a rock slide." Loki bitches. Tony takes that as his agreement and zeroes in on the roadblocks. They are enormous, solid steel with glass windows and foam seats. Setting his feet wider apart, Tony recalls the feeling of dicing vegetables. The way an expensive chef's knife sits balanced in his palm and the satisfying drop of a sharp blade cutting through and clacking on the cutting board. Once it's clear in his mind, he sets his jaw and moves his open hands like he's chopping a salad. Metal screeches like nails on a chalkboard, and the outlines on his shades become a lot more segmented. He cuts the shuttles in narrow sections and shoves the slices into a pile at the side.

What follows is a truly bewildering mismatch of sensations. Visually he doesn't see anything, it's just a neon blue pile of overlapping lines like a nineties virtual reality game. But his skin feels a rush of air as hundreds of bodies all rush for the exit in a anarchic free-for-all. He covers his ears to block out the overwhelming commotion and his head spins. Warm blood gushes from his nose and onto his hands and he gags at the smell of copper and death.

The solid line of Loki's back presses along his and Tony leans into it, makes himself open his eyes and pay attention. Maw throws tires and tool boxes at them and Loki guards Tony's back, deflecting the projectiles with grunts and painful sounding gasps like his own personal Obi Wan Kenobi. Wiping his nose on his bare arm, he throws himself around Loki and fires his array repulsors hard enough to fly even though he's not wearing Iron Man.

Aiming a swinging roundhouse kick at the wrinkly alien's face, he toggles the arrays from non-lethal gold to cutting blue. An unseen force stops his foot inches from the sorcerer's flat nosed face.

"You wear your thoughts too freely." Maw says.

Tony struggles, but his leg won't move. He's stuck in an awkward balancing act, trying to keep his body airborne while his leg is anchored to the spot. Real fear creeps down Tony's spine, and Maw's eyes narrow.

"I do not need to fight you to kill you." he whispers, just for Tony to hear, and far below he hears Loki howl in pain. He jerks at his leg as hard as he can, but it doesn't give and he has to twist to see. Forty feet below, Loki is immobilized, wrapped shoulder to shin in a steel beam with Midnight's spear floating in front of his chest. Tony yells, kicks and flails as hard as he can, but he can only watch while the spear sinks deeper and deeper and Loki screams.

"Give us the stone." Maw says evenly.

"Over my dead body." Tony grunts, lashing out with whips of Aether, but it does no good. There isn't any physical matter in the force holding his foot, and so the stone is useless against it.

The intangible force takes hold of Tony's other leg and dangles him upside down, gives him a better view of Loki thrashing helplessly in his bonds.

Maw chuckles. "I think you mean, over his."

Thinking fast, Tony turns his arrays gold and slashes. Wildly cuts across the entire hanger just to cut Loki out of his steel cage, and he hears a chorus of painful cries. Shit, shit he hit someone else. Someone not on his display. Loki grabs the shaft of the spear and pulls, yanks it back inch by inch with pure determination, straining so hard that his hands start glowing. His glamour drops, skin turning navy blue as he uses the last of his power to snap the triple tipped blade off of the handle and throw it to the ground.

Tony throws his weight around, swinging wild punches and slashing out with the Aether until he scores a lucky hit on the alien's ugly mug. The force drops him and he plummets, just barely catching himself with his hand rockets before he hits the floor. Loki manages to break his legs free and sprints to Tony's side. Holding his arm over his bleeding wounds, he snatches Tony's wrist and pulls.

"Run-" Loki says, dragging Tony over mounds of squishy, uneven terrain that he belatedly realizes are bodies. Dead human bodies. The floor in between mounds varies from slick to tacky and it's only when he catches the acrid scent of blood that he understands why. His stomach rolls and only Loki's hand on his arm keeps him moving.

He's seen death and destruction before, but only through a monitor while he was wrapped up safe in a flying tin can. Never before has he smelled the gore or tripped and gotten his boots tangled in some poor bastard's spilled intestines. It's revolting, horrible, all his fault. These alien psychos are here because of him and Loki's stupid cosmic treasure hunt, all these deaths are on him.

Without warning Loki stops dead and Tony crashes into him. Looking ahead, he sees a jagged blue line rising from the ground and he has no idea what that's supposed to be.

"We're cut off." Loki whispers, and when Tony turns around there's another matching line crawling up to the ceiling. Placing one hand over the other, Tony pulls them apart like he did to the robots in the city, and the bottom few feet of wall crumbles. He takes a step forward, but in seconds the barriers repair themselves. He does it again and again but it's like Tetris, no sooner does a line disappear than a new one takes its place.

Maw walks through the wall like he's passing through a beaded room divider, and looks up to the ceiling.

"An enthralling performance. I will be sure to inform Thanos of your cooperation, welp." Maw says darkly, and then they are surrounded by a brilliant blue light.

Tony trips as his feet leave the floor, but he doesn't fall. The feeling of weightlessness overcomes him as the beam interrupts the ship's artificial gravity and he realizes he's being pulled to the ceiling. Frantically, he reaches behind him and finds a bigger hand reaching back, warm as bath water.

Looking down he sees the grid representing the carrier's floor get smaller and smaller until it disappears entirely. A cold like liquid nitrogen compresses him into a shivering ball. Peeking through the gap around the edge of his glasses, he sees an endless, star speckled void splattered with unfathomable galaxies and asteroid fields. His stomach drops.

They're going for a ride.


	15. Chapter 15

The moment his feet touch solid ground, Tony rips the glasses off. He couldn't give less of a fuck about destroying whatever piece of shit spacecraft he's on. Every inch of the dim room is covered in pipes, valves, and levers arranged in a maze-like knot of machinery.

Looking down he sees they landed on a glowing raised platform in the center of a spherical room, watched by a gnarled looking alien at a control console. Apparently beam technology already exists, so there goes one lifelong ambition. Next they're going to tell him the holodeck is downstairs and he will officially have nothing left to live for.

Wordlessly Maw levitates he and Loki like a couple of oversized dolls and steps off the platform. In the game of real life rock paper scissors, apparently telekinesis beats matter. Tony seeks out Loki and the look of resignation he wears is worse than the suppressed fear Tony expected. It's the look of a runaway teen being shoved in the back of a police car and taken home.

Just looking at him gradually dissolves what little hope Tony has, so he focuses on studying their surroundings instead. Unless they pass some very convenient escape pods or shuttles, that transport room is their only way out. As rooms float by, he memorizes the route as best he can. Nobody tries to stop him, and that's either phenomenally stupid or a very bad sign.

The ship is made of some carbon based material, at least he assumes so from the matte black color. It is designed as a series of bulbous chambers connected by transparent tubes. He only looks out once because the view is the stuff of his nuke-and-wormhole nightmares. No escape pods or emergency shuttles in sight, bummer. After a long series of turns and airlocks they arrive at a cylindrical nexus and Tony cranes his neck up to take in the gargantuan network of magnetic lifts and floating walkways.

The sheer number of personnel traversing the atrium could rival any Stark facility, and no matter how he tries to suppress it Tony feels a bit intimidated. This isn't some rogue revolutionary, it's an army. Fighters, mechanics, secretaries, scientists. It's a whole living mechanism operating in service of this would-be galactic emperor. And he's one out-of-shape superhero with magic snot in his brain.

They take a lift to the top, and an honest to god monorail system carries them to a staircase labeled in strange glyph-like writing. It looks important, the edges all trimmed in white paint.

The room awaiting them looks like a cave, because of course it does. What's worse, it's an apartment. A few feet from the elevator the floor turns to a glossy black onyx, and the ceiling is carved into intricate geometric reliefs. An arrangement of couches sits under a large circular window at the back, and something like a kitchen is built into one wall. The centerpiece of the space is a long table lined with high backed chairs and laden with trays of food and drink. With a flick of his hand Maw seats he and Loki side by side, and the invisible force holding them dissipates.

"Thanos will see you shortly." Maw says, and glides over to sit on a bench at the back of the room. He occupies himself with levitating a handful of metal orbs in circles around his hand, not even paying attention to them. Because he knows they can't escape. What a fucking power move.

"I believe we are being Dr. No'd." Loki says softly, leaning back in his chair and eyeing the steaming platters of meat and vegetables. For a second the phrasing throws Tony off, then he notices a scrunched look come over Maw's face. The telepath can read their minds all he wants, but it won't matter if he doesn't get the references. Clever. Apparently all those nights laying on the couch watching Netflix weren't a waste of time.

"Better than going against a Sicilian when death is on the line." Tony says, and means ' _Is the food poisoned?'_

"I would choose Vizzini over Immortan Joe quite happily." Loki replies. ' _No, he thinks himself a prophet, not an assassin.'_

"Any chance we could Kingsman sequel it?" Tony asks, ' _Pretend to negotiate and turn when we have an advantage?'_

Loki shakes his head. "We would be the cowboy, not the knights." ' _We can't beat him physically.'_

"The Dark Tower?"

"I am not taking my clothes off." Loki rolls his eyes. "Much as I'm sure you would enjoy a naked brunch."

Tony smirks. "I was thinking of sharpening plates, but if that's where your mind goes-"

"Quiet." Maw snaps, firing an orb at Tony's head. It stops a centimeter from his nose, and he has to grip the arms of the chair to keep his cool. Loki sits up beside him.

"Is it not the point for us to talk? We would be in a cell otherwise." Loki says, leaning calmly on one elbow.

"You would be dead otherwise." Maw replies, and the metal orb near Tony's nose flies to press at Loki's temple.

Loki grins, no longer faking the insolent attitude. "Empty threats will get you nowhere with me."

Tony's heart just about stops at the fury on Maw's face, he's so sure Loki just earned himself a hole in his brainpan. But the orb stays where it is.

"As I thought." Loki says, settling back in his chair and spreading his legs to give those brass balls some fresh air. Fucking crazy bastard. Tony kind of wants an oil painting of his smarmy kiss-my-ass expression. Maw is less impressed.

"Permission is easily granted." he threatens, but it's too little too late. The slow return of the orb to his hand looks like a walk of shame.

A door opens on the far wall, and a bulky figure walks through. He's purple. Not purple like hypothermia, or purple like a tinted window, or even attractively shimmery like Proxima. He's Barney the Dinosaur with a chin implant.

"Who's this clown?" Tony asks, at the same time Loki says, "Greetings, Lord Thanos."

Thanos walks with the long steps of a man in control of his destiny. Despite himself, Tony feels a bit jealous. He's pretty sure that used to be his walk. The titan's hands are covered in rich red dirt, and he's carrying a basket woven out of some kind of reeds.

"Wait, that's Thanos?" Tony stage whispers, "We're fighting purple Homer Simpson and you never thought to mention that?"

"It didn't seem relevant." Loki replies.

"We're fighting a California Raisin, that is so relevant."

"Stark, Loki." Thanos greets, approaching the head of the table and setting down the basket.

"You know me?" Tony says.

Thanos pulls a knife out of his belt, and the low light of the room glints off the golden gauntlet on his left hand. A purple stone gleams from his knuckle, and Tony just about shits his pants. Odds are it's the power stone, that's the one he was after last they heard. No guarantees though, he has no idea what color time is or how shimmery a soul might be.

"You are impossible to ignore." Thanos says, dusting his hands on his pants. "Each time I think I am free of your meddling, we meet again."

"Again?" Tony asks, still eyeing the knife. Despite his slouch he's on the edge of his seat, his spine like a coiled spring.

"Timelines." Thanos grunts, shaking his head like the nature of time and space is just so inconvenient. "I am tired of beating you over and over again. You've become too great a distraction, and so I hoped we could arrange a ceasefire."

He pulls out his chair and sits, regarding them.

"Honored as we are by your invitation," Loki says dripping with irony, "we are not interested in bargaining."

"How unusual. Your fellow Asgardians were not so discriminating." Thanos remarks mildly, reaching into the basket and pulling out a fruit that gleams like his gauntlet.

Loki's smile turns rigid. Tony almost stands, almost starts a fight they can't win. The only reason he stays seated is Loki's heel pressed hard into his ankle.

The golden apple looks like a grape in Thanos' massive, calloused hands. Carefully rotating it between his thumb and index finger, he slices the peel from the pulp like a seasoned hunter skinning a rabbit. The precision and finesse of it sends a cold shiver down Tony's back.

"Fortunate then, that I am not Asgardian." Loki says, leaning in his chair like he's bored. "Name your price."

The golden skin of the apple falls to the table in long jagged strips, and the titan holds the naked fruit over a wide silver basin.

"This is not about my price, it's about yours." Thanos rumbles, and closes his fist around the apple. Juice drips into the basin with a sickening wet noise that reminds Tony of spilled blood and open wounds. He starts to stand and Loki grabs the back of his shirt.

"I am fascinated to hear what you think we want." Loki says in a passable attempt at a carefree tone, pulling Tony back to his seat.

Thanos picks up a strip of the apple peel and lays it across his hand. He squints at it for an exaggerated moment, and shakes his head.

"I never learned to read runes." he rumbles, and stands wearily from his chair. With heavy steps he comes to stand behind them and lays the peel on the plate in front of Loki. "Perhaps you can enlighten me."

Loki's face twists, fear and fury blending into a seething roar as he stands and Thanos grabs him by the back of his head. That massive golden glove wraps all the way from one temple to the other and squeezes. Crawling veins of purple magic flow down impossibly thick and powerful fingers and Loki yells, his body going limp in Thano's hold as the stone burns his flesh.

Tony's on his feet in an instant, his own stone wrapping around his body in gold and crimson plates until a silver orb flies to press at his forehead. Maw stands from the bench at the corner, his fingers poised to follow through on the threat.

"What does it say, Loki?" Thanos growls, squeezing.

Loki screams, and the word turns Tony's stomach to lead. "Hela."

Thanos throws Loki into the chair, purple tendrils of raw power crackling around his hand as the stone reforms on his gauntlet.

"Now was that so difficult?" he asks gently, petting Loki's hair in a way that has Tony wondering if permanent brain damage would be worth landing a punch. Loki flinches away, his hands spasming on the armrests as residual waves of energy tear through him.

"I made it so easy for you, little god. I gave you the mind stone, an army at your command. And still you failed." Thanos sighs, walking back to the head of the table and reaching in the basket. Loki's eyes widen as he stares up at Thanos, jaw tight with pain and sweat rolling down his angular cheeks.

When Thanos pulls a second apple from the basket Tony loses his patience. The look on Loki's face tips him over, and he doesn't care if this is the last thing he ever does. He raises his repulsor and fires, knocks the apple out of Deep Purple's grip and fires his boots.

There is a split second where he's certain he's about to die, where everything seems to move in slow motion and he knows if he doesn't disable Maw then he and Loki are as good as dead. With a twist of his wrist he cuts the sorcerer into one inch cubes and flies over the table. It works, thank fuck, it works.

Snatching the basket with an outstretched hand, he lands in a crouch over the second apple and throws it in.

"I don't want to do this, Stark. There's no reason we can't parley like civilized beings." Thanos says, grabbing Loki by the neck and dragging him up.

Loki's hands come up to grip the hand around his throat, his legs kicking wildly as he struggles to loosen Thanos' hold. His eyes meet Tony's, cracks of red invading the whites as his nostrils flare, and he looks meaningfully sideways. His gaze darts between Tony and the table, and he realizes Loki is indicating the basin of juice. He's telling Tony not to save him, to take Hela's life and run. As if.

"Ok fine, us and our family against the world. That's our price. Name yours." Tony says, setting the basket on the table like a loaded gun and raising his hands.

Thanos loosens his grip and Loki gasps. His eyes on Tony are furious, practically glowing with ire.

"The stones." Thanos says, "All of them."

One step at a time, Tony makes his way to the table. "Like, as in you actually trust us to fetch 'em for you?"

"I trust you to protect your own skins." Thanos says darkly.

"Fair." Tony says, tilting his head and grabbing a corked bottle from the table. He motions to the basin of soul juice. "Do you mind if I bottle this? I gotta do something with my hands. Kind of an ADHD thing-"

Thanos zaps Loki again, and this time he bites back his shrieks. It warps the sound into a horrible, muffled wail that doesn't match Loki's resolute gaze.

"Okay-" Tony says, dropping the bottle and raising his hands again. Thanos doesn't stop, he raises Loki higher.

"I know your tricks, Stark. And I will not be double-crossed-"

Tony doesn't hear the rest of the would-be Grape Dictator's speech. Loki throws his left hand down to his side while his body convulses and it draws his full attention. The gesture is so unusual, the shape of his hand so odd with three fingers out and two tucked in. He meets Tony's eyes and very deliberately curls his ring finger up. A countdown. _Hela,_ he mouths silently, over and over as his middle finger goes up and his right hand creeps up the gauntlet. Reaches subtly for the purple stone on the knuckle while Thanos continues issuing threats neither of them hear.

Loki's last finger curls into his fist and Tony doesn't hesitate. Circling his hands, he bends the silver basin into a closed sphere with the soul juice trapped inside and throws it in the basket. Without warning he's thrown back by a concussive blast that hits as solidly as a punch. Glasses, bottles, and crystal platters shatter in an advancing line across the table, the shards flying up and outward like saturn missiles on the 4th of July. In a split second it reaches Tony and slams him into the wall in a shower of debris and shimmering glass.

It detonates in a wave centered on Loki, so fast and powerful that Tony doesn't hear the sound of it until after it crashes. Unlike a normal explosion, the force continues after the initial blast, growing into a howling black and violet torrent that nearly eclipses Loki's banshee-like screaming. His partner's skin is cracking, crevices of purple energy crawling up his arm from where the stone has fused to his palm. He's staring at his hand in horror, his eyes shining pure white while he yells in uncontainable agony.

Tony calls for him but it's drowned out. He fires his repulsors at max power and barely moves, swimming upstream through waves and waves of primal force. The cracks on Loki's palm split open, his very core glowing purple. With a surge of light and energy the stone begins to consume him, and Tony's world narrows to the sound of his roaring voice and the unwavering resolve of his sharp features. He barrels around flying rubble and pushes with all his power to close the distance, to rip the stone from Loki's ruined flesh and damn the consequences. He isn't fast enough.

Deep fissures open from Loki's searchlight eyes, fracturing his cheeks and splitting into a ruinous rift right down his face. His body looks like a dry lake bed, blackened and shattering into craggy fragments. Tony panics, a chink inside him cleaving open as all his worst nightmares play out in front of him.

Blindly reaching backwards, Loki fights against the torrent. Even as his body starts to come apart he fights, his teeth bared and light beaming from his insides like a supernova. Power flows through him in waves and Loki channels it, becomes it, and in that moment Tony understands what it means to be a god. To exist on a frequency no mortal could stand and synchronize with it as two parts of the universe's collective consciousness. Loki's fractured body pulses in time with the rippling waves and with a ringing, otherworldly cry he lays his palm flat on Thanos' bare shoulder.

The cracks spread to him, halving the strain, and the wind holding Tony back weakens. He reaches Loki like a man possessed, awe-struck and panicking as he grabs his smoking hand. He makes his suit's hand into a blade and digs into the scorched flesh. Pries the damned gem out and throws it to the floor like trash. The cracks on Loki's body close into sizzling black flesh, and Tony catches him in his arms. He smells death and cut grass and his eyes refuse to focus on anything but his lover's split, bleeding lips. Their chanting, soundlessly mouthing _Hela Hela Hela._

Thanos recovers too quickly, shaking off the stone's power like harmless static and raising his fist to punch. Tony doesn't give him the opportunity. A repulsor blast to the nearest wall propels him backwards, arcing over the table to land near Maw's cube-ified body. He hesitates to call it a corpse, isn't sure if the change is permanent, but ultimately it doesn't matter. The only priority is escape.

Now that he's out of range Thanos changes tactics, goes for the gem instead of him. He doesn't need a fucking billboard to recognize an opening when he sees it. Somehow the basket is intact, two apples and a silver sphere tucked inside. He grabs it and guns the thrusters. The winding staircase is too narrow, and he bounces off several walls on his way down like a game of Pong.

There's no time to think, he can only retrace the route to the transport room and hope the cavalry doesn't come. It's not a very effective plan. The sight of Iron Man descending the mile deep elevator shaft snags the attention of every living being on the way down, and Tony's so tense he thinks he could shove coal up his ass and it would come out diamonds.

Pops and bleeps of energy guns follow them, ricocheting off his armor and splashing across Loki's tough Jotun skin. It's a blur of rushed motion and weightlessness as he cuts the thrusters and allows them to plummet. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet fly by them as Chitauri click and screech in their horror movie language. The apples float precariously over the basket and Loki stirs, weakly grabs them and tucks them into his belt pouches.

In a blink they reach the bottom floor and gravity slams back in, stealing Tony's breath as he arcs them into a dive. Loki's feet dangle, and he hits the ground running. Tony lands a few feet in front of him, taking out three armed guards with a slice of his blue ringed hands. Their bodies hit the floor in pieces with a wet smack and Loki stumbles, falling to a crouch at Tony's side.

The corridor before them seems never ending, a limitless dark expanse of round, rib-like doors obstructed by guards. A crowd gathers around them, and he can hear the humming of blasters powering on from far away platforms. Hundreds of hostiles draw their weapons when he looks behind, balancing long barrelled guns and wide mouthed cannons on guardrails. No going back, then. The only path left is the longest bottleneck death-trap he's ever seen.

Grabbing Loki by the arm, Tony drags him in his wake as he sprints down the dark hallway. His lungs feel like they are on fire, every breath turning his stomach at the smell of blood dripping from his nose. His eyes are bleeding too, his vision going foggy as he overrides every sign and symptom that his body is at the limit. Rooms fly by, turning into transparent tubes and back to black, over and over as they hurdle over platforms and through doorways. Guards stand in their way every few rooms and he slices and dices them without a shred of guilt or hesitation. All that matters is survival, staying one step ahead.

The transport room appears like a mirage on the horizon, such a relief he doesn't believe it's real. They draw closer and closer, and an alarm fires in his head. A rush of pure protective fury from the Aether that drives him into a dark corner near the final door. Two figures stand waiting on the other side of the wall, a slender horned figure and a pacing behemoth, Proxima and the giant from the helicarrier. He crowds Loki into the narrow alcove and shoves his face into the high collar of his suit, tries to smother the sound of his ragged breathing in the sweat soaked fabric.

Sharp nails dig into one shoulder and Loki trembles against him, hissing incomprehensible Aesir into his ear. Tony clamps his hand over Loki's mouth and holds his breath. His whole body braces for the worst. Their lungs fight for air, and thumping footsteps pace in the next room.

Proxima grumbles something sharp and caustic in alien, and the giant growls. Footsteps come closer. They pass through the doorway and sweat drips down Tony's neck. They stalk steadily down the corridor, searching, and in a fit of paranoia Tony wonders if aliens have night vision. Maybe even in this pocket of darkness Proxima will see them plain as day. In a heartstopping moment, they pass by. Leaning on Loki's taller form, Tony tries to catch his breath, tries to formulate a plan—and stupidly leans on Loki's fresh wounds. He hisses in pain, his face screwed up with the effort to keep quiet, but the footsteps immediately stop.

An alien phrase that can only be _did you hear that_ bounces off the walls. Leather slaps against boots and feet hammer the floor. Tony panics.

"Hold on." he says, bringing his hands down and sending exploratory threads of aether into the floor. It's carbon, tough but easily decomposed. He transmutes it into charcoal dust and they fall through, crashing into what Tony desperately hopes isn't the vacuum of space.

Joy of joys there is still air, and the area isn't occupied because it isn't meant to be. It's a tunnel beneath the corridor, a crawl space intended for electrical conduit and HVAC systems. Loki lands on top of him, his heavy body knocking the air out of Tony while he scrambles to reconstruct the floor. Well, technically it's now the ceiling. Whatever, the barrier between them and certain death, he's reconstructing that. Fresh blood leaks out his eyes and it feels like his brain is being bisected one neuron at a time.

Loki whines, rolling off to one side and curling around his wounded chest. They need to keep going, but he can't move. Loki moans, his voice gurgling around a tight throat, and Tony makes himself check on him. Fuck, his face is a crime scene. There's a massive, web-like lesion burned diagonally from one horn to the opposite ear, and his eyes have rings of soot-like blackness sealing them shut.

"Loki-" he whispers, reaching to touch but unable to find an undamaged place to put his hand. His partner curls further in on himself, and Tony has to sit up. "Can you open your eyes?"

"ᛗᚨᚲᚦᛟᛚᚨ-" Loki croaks, shaking his head no.

"Ok, ok does it hurt? Can you feel them?"

Loki nods, grinding his teeth.

"Alright. Okay, that's good, that means the nerves are-"

Hammering footsteps pound over their heads, and Tony looks up. Listens to see if anyone notices them. His heart pounds loud in the silence that follows. Looking back down, he carefully lays a finger under Loki's right eye and pulls down. The skin stretches but stays sealed, and Loki flinches away.

"ᛒᛖᛁᛋᚲᚱ."

"Hold still." he says, switching his arrays to gold. Loki pushes his hands away, patting repeatedly at the base of his neck. He grips Tony's wrist in his other hand, wincing.

"ᛒᛃᚨᚱᚷ. ᛒᚱᛃᛟᛏᚨ ᚢᛈᛈ ᚷᚱᛃᛟᛏ-"

"English, Loki. I'm a filthy, uncultured American. You gotta speak English."

Loki screws up his face. "Stone. The stone."

"We don't have it, you can't get to it."

"Here." Loki says, bringing Tony's palm to where his hand is shaking on his collarbone.

Tony sighs. "I can't, genius. I'm not-"

"Listening?" Loki spits.

"-magic." Tony finishes, and he doesn't need eye contact to feel Loki judging him. He spews out a meandering litany of Asgardian swears, and Tony rolls his eyes. Only Loki would waste his last breaths on slurred insults. Under Tony's hand he curls his fingers into a loose fist and points to the dip in his collar bone. The motion cracks open one of his burns and he jerks, but keeps pointing.

"Void." he says, jabbing at his clavicle, "Dark matter-"

Puffs of dust and dirt fall from the ceiling, and Tony hears pounding footsteps overhead. His arrays cast faint shadows on Loki's frantic gesturing, and just like that he understands. Loki wants him to reverse the spell with the stone. Whether or not it's possible seems irrelevant. At this point it's their only hope. The footsteps pause directly above them, and he stiffens, dust falling into his hair and sticking in his eyelashes.

Thanos's rumbling bass seems to cut right through the layers of carbon. He speaks loudly, like an actor addressing the audience.

"I don't want to do this, Stark. I gave you an out."

Something above them explodes, and purple energy sparks down the structural beams to discharge on the floor. Loki flinches, leans away even though it stretches the barely closed puncture wounds in his chest.

"It's not too late to join the winning side." Thanos continues, pacing. Tony can practically feel the power of his presence, an unseen threat looming just inches above them.

They need to move. Now. The access tube is tiny. Dissolving his suit is more a necessity than a choice, he needs the space to hoist Loki on his back.

"I admire your conviction. I know how it feels to believe in a cause, to fight, and struggle, and still lose." Thanos says, and another explosion shakes the craft. This time the impact dents the tunnel several feet back, and Tony starts crawling like a recruit at boot camp. It's grueling. Loki's weight is an anvil dragging him down, but he pushes through the exhaustion. They didn't go through all this bullshit to die like rats in a fucking utility pipe.

Something must tip Thanos off, because he starts aiming his blasts downward. Risking a glance back, he sees a gold fist crash through the ceiling and a cloud of purple fire detonates right behind them. The force of it throws them further down the passageway, and Tony grits his teeth through the bite of metal on his knees and the screaming ache of overused muscles. Sweat soaks his back, or maybe it's Loki's blood, and he pushes onward.

"If you think about it, I'm doing you a favor." Thanos says, punching another hole just a few paces from Tony's feet. "I'm giving your death meaning."

Jesus tap dancing christ, why does he always get the villains that monologue? He can never get a mute Russian assassin like Cap or a nice, monosyllabic She-Hulk. Oh no, not Tony. He only gets the ranting, psychotic terrorists.

The tunnel opens into some kind of vertical access shaft ahead, and despite his hazy vision he can see a ladder bathed in orange light. One arm then the other, he drags them under twisting pipes and low hanging bundles of wires. All the while the ceiling panels creek under the weight of their unseen assailant, and he tries not to think about what happens if he doesn't make it to the ladder in time.

Loki's arm around his neck half chokes him, and his pained breathing is like a wind tunnel in Tony's ear. The ladder is so close now, just a few more feet. A heart attack or a stroke could hit and he might not even notice, he's so far past his limit.

"He will only betray you, Stark. You know he will." Thanos taunts, and Tony almost takes the bait. It's just so infuriating, that old jab he's taken as much from friends as he has from enemies. But he is within arm's reach of a way out, so he bites his tongue and pulls himself over the final stretch. Wiggling out from under Loki, he holds tight to the ladder and pulls himself into the vertical tube. His feet slam hard on a rung, and he feels exposed by the free flowing air and the seemingly endless pillar of space. A fan spins lazily at the top of the air duct, hundreds of feet above and casting shadows that circle like vultures waiting for a kill. Below there's a drop that would kill most humans, but in a pinch he and Loki could probably walk it off.

Turning around, he braces one leg on the opposite wall and steadies the foot still on the ladder. He's doing a kind of half split over a very long drop, and if his foot slips there won't be anything stopping his descent.

Swallowing down the fear, he reaches both hands for Loki.

"Whatever you do, don't fucking let go." he says, and grabs Loki around the elbows. His partner returns the hold, eyebrows pinched in confusion as gusts of wind hit his face and ruffle his matted hair.

"What-" Loki gasps, squeezing the life out of Tony's arms when his elbows leave solid ground.

"Just hold on, Bambi. I've got you."

He has his partner half out, his hips right on the edge, when the ceiling caves in directly above him and a golden fist fills the tunnel with purple fire. A burst pipe fills the crawl space with hissing white smoke, and something starts dragging Loki back in. Hoarse yelling echoes through the ventilation shaft and his hands slip to Loki's wrists.

Thanos is stronger, there's no comparison. One lurching pull, and Tony's foot leaves the ladder. Like fish on a hook, the titan reels them in. Steam obscures everything. A stinging bite of boiling water that turns the floor slick and stops him getting any leverage. Thanos pulls them to the hole he punched in the ceiling, and by pure luck Tony's feet land on either side.

Aether coats his arms, great corded lines of artificial sinew that ripple and strain. Rocket boosters materialize on the backs of his elbows, and somehow it overpowers Thanos. They slip his hold and Tony's back hits the ladder like a freight train. The sickening crunch of ribs breaking forms the soundtrack to their rapid ascent as the boosters carry them up, his bare shoulders ripping rungs off the ladder and sending them careening into the opposite wall in an uncontrolled climb.

By the time the pain registers and the stone cuts the thrusters it's too late, he feels like tenderized meat. Groaning, he flops over on the floor and watches his vision swim in and out. Blinking lights look almost like stars until his eyes adjust and they become a tantalizing puzzle of alien machinery. Rolling on his back, his arm brushes Loki and he stares vacantly at a spiralling pillar of wires and glowing chambers that pulse rhythmically with flowing energy.

"Good boy." Tony grunts, his arm flopping limply on Loki's leg and patting his kevlar hip guard.

"Not your pet." Loki says around wet, gurgling exhales that don't sound good at all.

"No." Tony agrees. "You'd be the worst pet. You'd piss on everything."

"Eat your shoes-"

"Bite anyone that takes my attention."

"Sounds fun." Loki murmurs, coughing.

Sitting up steals what little breath Tony has, but who the fuck cares. The mechanism nearby is an engine, he can see fuel lines extending to the massive tanks in the next room, and an exhaust pipe that goes up to what looks like a catalytic converter. It's not like any machine he's ever built, but there are only so many ways to generate power and they all look similar.

"Dark matter." Tony says, leaning over Loki while moving his ribs as little as possible. "You mean like a wormhole."

"Yes." Loki wheezes.

"When you pull rabbits out of hats, you open a tiny wormhole and finger it."

Loki nods, and despite everything his evil little lip curls in a lopsided grin. Like he's proud of himself for playing with unstable quantum mechanics for the sake of convenience.

"You are such a fucking health hazard." Tony says, and if he's grinning slightly it's only the post-battle endorphins kicking in.

Lucky for them, Tony made himself an expert on anti-electron collisions back in 2012 and not much has changed since then. Hard for progress to happen when one leading expert is in a mental institute and the other is working out of an RV. He runs the details by Loki, who nods along vaguely enough that Tony's only half sure he's actually listening. Finally he decides he's about as prepared as he's ever going to be to summon a fucking black hole in his lover's esophagus and throws a leg over Loki's hips.

Opening portals doesn't seem like a reality stone thing, but dark matter is still matter. The arrays are gold, but there's nothing safe about this. No way he can think of to make this not ridiculously deadly if he fucks up. Around his broken ribs and rapidly swelling shoulder he can't even take a calming breath, he just goes for it.

Picturing the theoretical diagrams he's studied, he makes a disc of energy and inverts it. Turns reality itself inside out in that space and puts his finger through the middle, makes it a tube of molecules connected by matter but existing outside of time and space.

With all the recklessness of his youth, he sticks his hand in. It disappears, and ain't that a mindfuck. Feeling blindly, he stretches his fingers and touches something solid. A lot of somethings, actually. Shit, this pocket dimension is crammed full of stuff. It's like a damn junk drawer inside Loki's neck. How does he find anything? Fortunately the locket is familiar, so he finds it pretty much immediately.

His hand comes back intact, and laying innocently in his palm is a cheesy old school locket. Bless this mess. Dissipating the tube of anti-matter, he practically collapses in relief. Only Loki's hiss of pain and the matching stab in his ribs propel him back up.

Slim fingered hands feel for his, and he presses the locket into them, cups them as firmly as the burns allow. Loki clicks the mechanism open with practiced ease. The brilliant blue stone has never been such a welcome comfort.

"Beam us up, Loki." he says, raising his hands and holding the right over the left. If they're blowing this popsicle stand, they might as well leave with a bang.

"Right away, Mr. Stark." Loki rasps, closing his fist around the space gem. A rippling black portal opens underneath them. They start to sink, not fast but not slow, and Tony studies the towering engine a few feet away.

Once he's waist deep, he whips his hands apart and slices clean through. What little he sees of the explosion as he fades away is magnificent. It probably won't stop the titan for long, but it's one less ship in the armada.

A freezing wind hits him like a full body slap, so cold it burns, and they land in a deep drift of snow. It cuts through his scrubs like tissue paper and every muscle in his body seizes before he even starts shivering. Loki burrows farther into the mound of powder and purrs like a cat, the bastard. It probably feels like a soothing ice pack to him.

By Tony's estimation, and his math is always right, he has about five minutes before he starts losing fingers. He summons the suit and tries not to think about the small rivers of blood flowing from his nose. At this rate he'll be a vegetable by sunset. Assuming there is a sun on whatever backwater moon this is.

Spidery black trees stretch toward the sky all around them, bare limbs splitting and spreading like skeleton fingers. Thick clouds obscure everything but the distant blue mountains and the revealing expanse of white ice that surrounds them. Nothing stirs as far as he can see, no animals or people. It's bleak, totally alien.

The display in his helmet flares, detecting a heat signature invisible to the naked eye. It's approaching, low to the ground but still impossible to see through the billowing snow storm. He fires both repulsors.

"Show yourself." he calls, stepping into a wide stance.

The fog shifts, like a swish in the curtain of reality. Tony's back goes rigid. A salt-and-pepper snout appears as though emerging from the blizzard itself, followed by tufted ears and intelligent yellow eyes. Seemingly out of nowhere a massive white wolf pads into the deep ditches and snow drifts. It moves with the grace of an animal completely in its element, and Tony finds himself leaning in.

Snowflakes gather on the beast's springy fur, it's black nose twitching and sniffing at scents on the wind. The clear intelligence scares him more than the wolf's massive size. Even an idiot could feel the threat in that gaze.

The creature's nose could take up Tony's whole hand. He knows without a doubt because it's sniffing his gauntlets. It's hackles raise and it snarls. A line of dagger-like teeth take up Tony's entire display, and he jumps back to stand over Loki.

With one big stride it advances on him, growling. Powerful jaws snap in his face, and he ducks, side steps. Another bite nearly misses his hand and he fires his repulsors to get more distance. Only after he's midair does he realize the beast is herding him away from Loki. By the time he lands, it's nose is in Loki's hair.

It becomes a stand-off. Tony holding out his repulsors, unwilling to spook the beast. His partner laying half-conscious beneath a tree. The beast sniffing at his neck and… licking is face? Ew.

Loki stirs. At the first brush of the wolf's enormous slobbery tongue he brings his hands to the tufts of hair behind its ears.

"It's me-" he says, "No tricks."

The wolf growls, it's huge head angling toward Tony and back to Loki. Keen eyes regard them, and the wolf turns back the way it came. A fluffy tail swishes behind it, and Tony thinks abruptly of Fenrir. It's identical to the restless, agitated kind of tail swish that precedes a tantrum or a fight with Jori. Creeping realization works its way over Tony's aching brain. No way. Loki didn't just teleport them to-

"Angrboða." Loki calls in a pathetic voice, listing into alien words that can only be described as pleading. It's not exactly a farce, but it's also not real. Genuine distress doesn't quite reach that decibel, even if Loki can be a cry baby about it.

The wolf stops. Mournful eyes turn back, and Loki feigns like he's trying to sit up but he can't. The wind carries a canine whine, and Loki groans.

"Please." he yells like he's on a soap opera, and Tony kind of wants to kill him. "I have no one else."

Tony sighs. Apparently, this is the part where they beg Loki's ex for help.


	16. Chapter 16

Once the wolf gets in spitting distance, it transforms into a Jotun. That's really where things go south. As soon as both parts of the conversation are capable of speech they start arguing.

Watching the aggressive gestures from the sidelines, it's easy to guess the words. Even if he hadn't spent a month after Loki's fake death devouring Spanish soap operas, he's had this exact argument before.

Angrboða points in Loki's face, growling. ' _You little bitch, don't you manipulate me.'_

Loki squirms deeper into the snow. ' _But I'm so pathetic, look at me. Don't you want to save me?'_

Angrboða turns away, gritting their teeth. ' _I'm smarter than this. I'm not doing this again.'_

Loki weakly replies. ' _But you have to. You love me, don't you love me?'_

Tony can't look. It's the same song and dance, but instead of participating he has a front row seat. Or rather, he wishes he had a front row seat because then he would be sitting. Instead he's swaying on his feet and dreaming of a hot bath.

Soon the Jotun stomps away, and he watches them disappear in the blizzard.

Tony feels like his soul is leaking out his nose. His vision swims, the bleak surroundings going fuzzy until he realizes he's fainting and snaps awake.

"I'm guessing that didn't go well." he says.

"No." Loki replies. He tries to clear his runny nose and the cold air sends him into another fit of wet coughing.

"You don't look so good." Tony says, stumbling through the deep snow. His brain is on fire, but his body is listless, clumsy. He means to keep babbling, but he winds up leaning on a tree trying to catch his breath. He's crashing, dead weight in his suit.

"I cannot comment on your looks." Loki wheezes, and grabs a handful of snow. He rubs his hands together until it turns to slush and rubs it on his face.

Loki scours his eyelids and Tony waves his hand in a quelling gesture.

"Stop that, you're gonna make it worse."

"It already is worse." Loki says, his voice high and cracking. The water does get the soot out of his eyes, and now there are inky smears around them like Chinese calligraphy. Loki blinks narrowly, and his eyes look normal. For a Jotun, anyway.

"So this is where blueberries come from? Not exactly a beach resort." Tony says. "Why are we here?"

Loki does another charming rendition of the sniff and cough. "My magic. It must be restored."

The wind intensifies, and even Loki shivers.

"Doesn't look like your ex wants to help you."

Loki hugs himself. "In the past I went to Frigga-"

Tony winces, glad Loki can't see his face behind the helmet.

"Can you patch up without it? Not that this isn't important, but you look like a well done steak."

"I hoped my injuries would convince her." Loki admits.

Tony sighs. "Yeah, I noticed that. Dick move, by the way."

Loki slits his eye open. "What about you? Let me see you."

"Aww, he does love me." Tony says. His face plate slides up and the cold hits him like a brick. Loki frowns.

"It's not as bad as it looks. I'll be fine." Tony fibs, taking Loki's hand and wrapping his fingers around the locket.

Loki's face pinches. "We must return soon. I cannot go on like this."

"We will, princess. Calm your tits."

Loki huffs. "I despise that idiom."

A portal appears under them.

"Breasts are neither anxious nor calm." Loki bitches as they sink into the ether, "They are simply organs."

"I only say it 'cause you hate it." Tony snorts, and embraces the sensation of weightlessness.

They land on the mattress of their bed in Malibu. He clamors over the mass of pillows and nearly falls out of the armor the instant he's on his feet. When the hinges open he collapses face first. Then yells. Shit, the ribs. He's broken a lot of bones before, but the ribs really kill.

"Welcome home, Boss." FRIDAY chirps. "Should I call for Ms. Potts?"

"Not yet." Tony says, rubbing his face on the sheets. The smell of perfumed curtains and burning wood hits him like morphine. There really is no place like home.

Loki gingerly removes his clothes and armor, and just watching convinces Tony to stay in his scrubs for now. Raising his arms above his head would be torture.

"I could sleep for a century." Tony says.

The bed dips as Loki settles down in nothing but a fresh pair of boxer briefs.

"FRIDAY, set an alarm for 2114." Loki drawls.

Someone shrieks, and his eyes dart toward the noise. Hela's in the hallway, frozen midway through pulling on a hoodie.

"Pepper!" ze yells, and the rest is a blur of bodies and energetic words. The bed becomes very crowded very quickly.

"Oh my god." Pepper shouts, running in after the stampede of bite sized Jotun.

"You stink, daddy." Jori says, climbing on the bed.

Hela drags him off. "He's hurt, don't touch him."

"Did you get bar-be-qued?" Fenrir demands.

"Your grounded." Tony says. "Everyone's grounded. Go to your rooms."

A chorus of complaints erupts, and Pepper speaks over them. "He's joking. You know how Mr. Stark can be."

"Hey, no, this is not a drill. You're all super grounded." Tony interrupts, sitting up with an embarrassing grunt of pain. "But you know what would get you pardoned?"

"Grovelling." Hela says, smacking loudly on chewing gum.

"Burgers. A mountain of burgers." Tony declares with a regal gesture. And remembers the kids don't like burgers. "And masala. A tikka for every tot. That's your quest. Now away with you, get thee to thy Grub Hub."

Fen and Jori dash off, and Hela trails in their wake. Ze gives Tony a concerned look before heading downstairs, and his heart sinks. It's like ze has a whole new face, now that he knows what to look for. There's a similarity in their eyes, an almond shape that isn't Loki's. Ze has hir mother's horns too. It's stupid, the stab of loss. They were never his kids to begin with. He's being ridiculous.

"Where have you been?" Pepper whisper-shouts, and drags him back to the problem at hand. "My god, you're dressed like a doctor, you're-" She motions to her face. "You're bleeding. There's footage of you doing magic on the news."

"Pepper-"

"Don't you 'Pepper' me! You owe me an explanation."

Tony's too tired to be responsible. Laying very, very gently on his stomach, he lets his eyes slide shut. Pepper continues to pace and panic, but he's already half asleep.

"I'm just gonna-" _take five.' he says._ ' _Rest my eyes, you know. Just for a minute.'_

 _He feels like he's floating, slipping into hazy sleep. The pain and exhaustion drift away, and he smells fresh flowers. Hears the far off whirring of machines._

" _Tony, can you hear me?" Steve Rogers asks._

" _Mmnha-" Tony mumbles. His mouth feels funny. Heavy and half numb._

 _Unfamiliar hands hold his. "You're in the lab. What do you remember?"_

" _Lemme sleep."_

 _Banner approaches wearing his lab coat and changes out the IV bag connected to Tony's wrist._

" _Traitor." Tony says. It's too bright in here. He's dizzy, and everything's rocking like a rubber duck in a bathtub._

 _The big guy frowns, and takes his pulse. "It's bad this time, Tones. You've been out for a week."_

 _Since when does Bruce call him Tones? The line between Banner's brow deepens. Oh, he said that out loud._

" _FRIDAY, can you get Vision? I think we have another body snatcher." Bruce says._

 _Body snatcher? Tony giggles. That's ridiculous._

 _Then he laughs harder, because he giggled and that's so embarrassing._

 _Wow, they have him on the good drugs._

 _Loki appears. Everybody but Tony jumps. That's funny too._

" _Heya Lo-ki." Tony sing-songs, "Lo-ki. Lo-ki. I love your name."_

 _His not-fiance is wearing a weird drapey thing. It's orange. He takes a wide stance with his hands behind his back._

" _Hello, Anthony. I have some questions for you." Loki says. Tony gets lost in his eyes. They're gold._

" _I'm so high right now." Tony confesses._

 _Loki starts taking notes on a holo tablet. "What color is my soul?"_

" _How should I know?"_

" _What is the date?"_

 _Tony has to think about it. "December, um, fourteenth?"_

" _Year." Loki prompts, eyes on his screen._

" _Almost the New Year." Tony grins, remembering. "We should go see the ball drop. They'll put us on TV."_

" _Focus." Loki sighs. He's tired, his eyes are puffy._

" _Sorry." Tony says, "2014. Almost 2015."_

" _Do you possess any Infinity Stones?"_

" _Reality. Little bastard. Shoulda listened to you."_

 _Loki's lip quirks. Finally. Tough audience, this guy._

" _Indeed." Loki says, looking over his shoulder. "Do we have a reading, Doctor?"_

" _Almost." Bruce says, "Another minute or so."_

 _Tony reaches for Loki's hand, but he steps back._

" _What year is it here?" Tony asks. Loki's lip quirks down._

" _You heard the doc, we got a minute." Tony presses._

" _2021."_

" _Woah. Should I buy Apple or Amazon?"_

 _Loki tilts his head thoughtfully. "Pharmaceuticals spike 300% in 2017."_

" _Sweet." Tony says, eyes heavy._

 _Golden Eye's hair isn't slicked back, it's loose and curling all over the place. He should get Loki to wear his like that. It's so fluffy._

 _Loki dismisses the holo display. "Any more silly questions?"_

" _You're pretty." Tony mumbles._

 _Loki rolls his eyes. "I'm sure you say that to every God of Mischief you meet."_

 _Tony smirks. "Only cause it's true."_

 _A machine beeps on the other side of the room. With a nod from Banner, Loki steps closer._

" _Thank you for your cooperation. Should we meet again, please identify yourself as Red 202."_

" _202? You get around, Snowflake."_

 _Loki puts a hand on Tony's forehead. His eyes glow yellow. "I find that nickname offensive."_

"No, don't taze me." Tony groans. He rolls on his side and his ribs scream. Returning to his front doesn't make it much better. Damn, he misses the drugs already.

Loki's spider web face swims into focus. He's unconscious, mouth slack and eyes moving under his lids. His hair is matted and he really needs a shave.

"You're an asshole, you know that? Every version of you." Tony tells him.

Loki snores.

Touché.

Sunlight pours through the billowing drapes, the doors to the balcony open and letting in a cool ocean breeze. He's naked from the waist up, and there's a bandage on his shoulder. Scanning the room he discovers a breakfast tray waiting on his bedside table. It's loaded with bacon, eggs, a stack of toast, and coffee. Hot, steaming coffee.

Sitting up with a groan, he snags the mug and downs half of it in one go. It's better than sex. For real this time, he means it. He would turn down a blowjob for a refill.

With the chemical magic of caffeine, he feels clear headed for the first time in a week. So much happened in such a short time, he feels jumbled. Thanos, the multiverse, Angrboða. The helicarrier, shit, all those bodies.

His heart skitters to a fast beat, and he clutches at his frayed control. Sucking down the usual calming breaths hurts his ribs, which in turn makes his heart beat faster. The mug burns a bit in his hands, and he closes his eyes.

The heat reminds him of Loki, his passion and attitude and inhuman skin. The man in question snores behind him, and he pats around the covers until he finds exposed skin. It's shameful, how quickly his nerves settle. He's not offering any reassurance, hell he's not even aware Tony's pawing him like a baby with a blanket. But his heart rate evens out.

A patio chair scrapes on the tile outside, and Pepper walks in looking windblown and sunny.

He looks closely, suspicious of her calm. "What day is it?"

"Hello to you too" Pepper says, checking her Stark watch.

"FRIDAY?" Tony interrupts.

"It is Monday, December 15, 2014, Boss."

She look over Tony's shoulder with raised eyebrows. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Hmm?" he answers intelligently, following her gaze. A roguish breaks over his face.

The exposed skin he found was Loki's thigh, the smooth part right under his butt. He's ticklish there, in the crease of his ass, and it's tempting. But Loki is deep asleep, limbs loose and mouth hung open in the kind of restorative slumber only a true sadist would ruin.

Tony looks back at his best friend and refuses to look chagrined. There's no reason this of all things should be the first time Pepper catches him feeling embarrassed.

She crosses her arms and shifts her weight to one side. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I have to pull it out of you?"

"Well I was gonna play along, but now I'm thinking of 'pull it out' jokes."

"I should have stayed on the balcony with my e-book." Pepper says, picking up a slice of toast and piling eggs on top.

Tony steals the toast and takes a big bite. He talks with his mouth full. "But who would be your amazing, inspiring, wildly-"

"Inappropriate?"

"-charming best friend?"

Pepper gives him one of her exasperated smiles and makes another toast sandwich.

"I always wanted a cat." she says, sitting beside him. Her all-seeing eyes don't leave him, and it takes real effort not to squirm. She always makes him feel like a kid in the principal's office.

He scratches at the reactor scar and fidgets. "Pretty sure dogs are man's best friend."

"Well mine would be a cat." Pepper says, fiddling with her sandwich. "Will you at least tell me you're going to be okay?"

Tony shoves the rest of the toast in his mouth just to stall. Pepper sighs, taking small bites of her own breakfast and swiping the crumbs off her skirt.

"I'll be okay." Tony lies. His mouth feels dry, so he chugs the rest of the coffee despite the burn. "Do you ever wonder if you made the right call?"

"What if, you mean?" Pepper replies, setting her sandwich on the tray. "Not usually. But after an important decision, yes. Everyone does that."

Tony balks. "Not like that. Come on, this is me we're talking about."

"Then what are we talking about?" she says, blinking at him in her _did you eat magic mushrooms again_ face.

"I mean existentially. If X didn't happen, would I still be Y? What if, like… You know what, nevermind. It's not important. What I'm trying to say is… And I'm not saying you did anything wrong-" Tony babbles, waving his empty mug. Pepper takes it from him and sets it on the side table.

"Are you asking why we broke up?" she asks.

"No! I mean, kind of. Because I know why. Or I think I do." he says, fiddling with the drawstring of his pants and checking her face. She looks like she's at a board meeting, perfectly composed and carefully polite.

"You're wondering what might have been?"

Tony's face pinches and he glances back at Loki for reassurance. Frosty's drooling on a pillow right where he left him. He sighs, and meets Pepper's assessing eyes.

"More like _who_ I might have been. As in… Alright, here's an example. What if I was there when Killian came for you-"

"You think that's why we… Tony, it wasn't anything you did."

"It was a year ago, you can spare me the 'it's not you' talk."

"Oh it definitely was you." Pepper says with a fond smile. The one that always makes her look sad. She straightens her clothes, sighing. "It was New York. I was terrified, I wanted you with me, and… and you're on the news."

"To protect you-" Tony insists.

"And I admire that." Pepper says, sincerely, "But I deserve to have my boyfriend on the plane with me. And you deserve someone who will fly in the wormholes with you."

Tony stares at her, stunned. He never thought of it like that. On some level he thought she just hated her Christmas present.

She pats him on the leg and grabs his coffee mug. Loki's snoring sounds ridiculously loud in the silence as she walks onto the balcony and returns with a full cup.

"So for us to work-" he says, looking down at his fiddling fingers.

She holds the mug out for him, around the rim so the handle is free. "You would have to not be Iron Man. Which means, in my opinion, you wouldn't be you."

"I-" Tony stops, taking the mug and sighing. "Thanks."

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?" she asks gently.

"That will be all, Ms. Potts."

When she walks into the hallway he feels lighter. He's not a mindless clone following his cosmic destiny. He's here because of the choices he made. All the other versions have nothing in common with him but a shared starting point.

There's still no clear reason why all these timelines are putting so much effort into manipulating his dimension. But it is a comforting notion, this idea that he's more than a pawn in it. He has influence over how this goes down.

He takes a sip of his coffee, and Loki's scratchy baritone warms him almost as much as the steaming drink.

"If that woman calls you Mr. Stark again, I am putting glue in her shampoo." Loki growls.

Jealousy is pretty rich, given what he just saw on Jotunheim. That argument between Loki and the she-wolf didn't look very past tense to him. Which pisses him off now that he thinks about it. All that talk about wanting to be his, and it turns out there's nothing ex about Loki's ex-wife.

Staring into his coffee mug, Tony blanches. If Loki never ended things, then Tony's not a rebound like he thought. He's a homewrecker. Son of a bitch, he's the other woman.

Dishing up a plate, he scoots to the middle of the bed and glares at his absolute tool of a partner.

"At least my ex knows we aren't together anymore." Tony says, looking at Loki sideways.

Loki has the decency to look sheepish. "If Angrboða does not think me lost it is hardly my fault."

"Somehow I doubt you had a conversation about it."

"It was two hundred years ago. The point is made."

"Yeah I don't buy that. There's five hundred years between Hela and Fen."

Loki shoots him a dour look, and shimmies up to lean on the tufted headboard. "Much of that time I was bound under a snake, if you must know. She knew my whereabouts."

"Wait, that legend is true?" Tony asks, perturbed. He busies himself with a spoonful of eggs just in case he looks alarmed. Loki tends to clam up if he reacts badly.

"I lost my temper and made a fool of myself at a banquet. To use Midgardian terms, She believed I had shit the bed, and thus I ought to lie in it."

Tony hides a grin in his coffee cup. "That's two different idioms, but go on."

"There's not much else to tell. The whole affair was unbearably tedious. It took three years to regrow my eyes."

That's the trouble with Loki's past. Answers only create more questions. Like what exactly pissed him off enough to crash a party and kink shame the guests.

Tony holds out a strip of bacon and pulls it back when Loki moves to take it.

"The whole story, or I eat all the bacon." he says, with a tilt of his head. He waves the strip and trusts the salty, delicious smell to do its job.

Loki purses his lips, looking around the room. "As a child I was betrothed to a woman named Sigyn. As we came of age I knew I could not give her children."

"Not your type?" Tony asks.

"Like most women, she lacked certain anatomical features." Loki hedges. "But she had a paramour on Anaheim, and we came to an agreement. I acknowledged her children as my own, and she kept her silence."

"About your preferences?" Tony says before his partner can pick a less kind word. Loki nods.

"We got along, and I actually quite liked her. But I never told her about Angrboða."

"Who I assume does not lack anatomical features."

Loki's smirk is telling, and very smug. "We don't call them giants for nothing."

"Should I feel threatened?" Tony jokes, and if there's an edge of insecurity he hopes Loki won't call him out for it. His partner eyes him, like the notion is there and very tempting. But then he looks down and pokes at the breadcrumbs on the plate.

He bites his lip and his face softens. "There are qualities of a person more important than a measurement."

Something flips in Tony's stomach at the look, a faint echo of the attraction that used to take over when Loki looked at him. The feeling is different now. Tempered and harder to define. It's dedication, he realizes. A commitment to see this through until the end. The intensity scares him, and he scrambles for some scrap of humor to hide behind.

"So am I up to snuff? 'Cause there are pills and supplements-"

Loki's ears burn indigo. "Don't make me say it."

"-and now that I think of it, Gates recommended a specialist that one time. What was his name? FRIDAY, did we put that in memory?"

"Don't answer that, you blasted machine-"

"Dr. David Lorita." FRIDAY says, "Would you like me to schedule an appointment?"

"Sure, why not?" Tony says, tearing up the last piece of toast and tossing the bits in his mouth.

"You are sufficiently endowed, and I like your cock." Loki snaps, "Are you happy now, you insufferable philistine?"

Tony loses it, his laughter echoing down the hall. Followed by an undignified yelp when the convulsions tweak his broken ribs. He hisses, working to breathe shallowly around the self-inflicted torment.

"Serves you right." Loki sniffs, reaching over Tony's lap to grab the whole stack of bacon.

"Flattery will get you everywhere." Tony says, scooping up a spoonful of eggs and holding it out. Loki accepts it, and licks his lips after.

"Where was I?" Loki asks, stealing a sip of Tony's coffee.

"You had two wives and a deep dark secret." he prompts.

Loki's face twists. "It sounds maudlin when you put it like that. But all the same, yes, I was living a double life. I was also serving as Thor's vizier, and growing discontent. I started making mischief. Nothing drastic, some deals with dwarves and the like. But Asgardians are not known for their good humor."

"So you pissed off the wrong people and they went looking for dirt." Tony surmises.

"Precisely. It would have been enough that I had a mistress, but the fact that she was Jotun made it a scandal. There had been whispers about me, but I was discrete. They never had proof."

"Until Angrboða."

Loki nods, jaw tight. Tony's aware that he shouldn't get worked up about something that happened in the Stone Age. He still does though.

"So the busy bodies outed you, and you thought you'd get them back by airing all their dirty laundry."

Loki's face says it all. Regret, shame, a spark of lingering self-righteous rage. "It was a mistake. I never reclaimed my title. Dull as things were, I was respected and the position suited me. I cannot say the same for my life after the binding."

Silence reigns while they finish off whatever food they can steal from each other.

Loki chews on his toast thoughtfully. "I suppose Miss Potts does make a good breakfast."

"You should feel honored. She only cooks for people she likes."

Loki snags the TV remote and turns on some British baking show. His hand lands beside Tony's leg and after a minute it's burrowed underneath.

Tony sips his coffee and tries to get comfortable despite his ribs hurting in every position he tries. Loki fidgets beside him, coughing on and off to the reality show's cheerful music. After a particularly violent episode he stalks to the bathroom.

"Lokes?" he calls, ribs twinging when he gets himself up. About eight different joints complain about the walking, but he didn't get where he is by listening to warning signs.

Shuffling around the bed, he makes his way to the doorway and finds Loki kneeling at the throne. The sound is awful, and he's torn between holding Loki's hair out of the way and filling up his coffee cup with water. The shock of the toilet bowl turning red has him scooting out like a coward, and he grabs the mug just to cover his unmanly retreat.

By the time he returns most of the retching is over, but Loki's still laying there spitting out chunks of clotted, black gunk. Ugh, Tony will be next if he doesn't stop soon. That is just too nasty.

Dumping the last dregs of coffee from the mug, he fills it with clean water and sets it on the counter.

"Internal bleeding." Loki groans in the same tone Pepper used to say _menstrual cramps._ Like it's mildly irritating, and not nightmare fuel.

Tony hands him the water.

"I would mend a bone anyday over this." Loki says, swishing the water and spitting into the toilet. "Seidr burns."

"That stone punched your ticket pretty good." Tony says, pushing the button and the tank and watching the viscera swirl down the drain. "Just wait 'til your skin starts to peel."

"That, as they say, shall be fun for the whole family." Loki grunts, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and sitting on the toilet.

On a kind of silly impulse, Tony opens the mirror cabinet and pulls out the burn creme. Scanning the label, he blinks at the list of ingredients. It's funny, he used to slather himself in the stuff almost daily. Overheated suits, solder burns, reactor shorts. Nowadays that stuff's gone by dinner time.

He unscrews the cap and squeezes out a blob on his palm. Tipping Loki's chin up, he taps dots of white ointment along the spider web burn.

"There's no need." Loki says with a bland expression. He's starting to recognize that look. It's Loki judging himself for enjoying something, and silently hoping Tony gives him an excuse to continue.

"I don't want it to scar." Tony says, running a finger down Loki's chin and accidentally leaving a soul patch behind. He draws a curly mustache and Loki scowls. He looks dastardly. And cute.

Tony snorts and Loki throws off his hands, standing up.

He puts his clean hand on Loki's crown. "Sit down, Lokes."

Loki's nostrils flare. "I will not be mocked. Not anymore and certainly not by you."

"I'm not laughing at you, You looked cute." Tony says.

Loki sits, pouting. "I doubt that."

Tony's lip twitches downward, and he corrects it. They're playing at the edges here, and he doesn't want to send mixed signals. Working from one side of the burn to the other, he rubs in the ointment. It clearly stings, but Loki stays still.

"You need to stop contradicting me, Slugger." he says, wiping away the moustache and memorizing the novel scratch stubble on Loki's jaw.

Loki swallows, eyes hungry. "Why do you call me that?"

"You don't know?"

"Urban dictionary was inconclusive."

"It's boxing slang for a fighter that doesn't pull punches." Tony says.

Loki looks at him in that not-quite-hopeful way of his. "I fail to see how that is an endearment."

"It's what I like about you." Tony shrugs, rubbing in the last of the creme. "We can play games in private, but outside of that? I don't want you to take shit from anyone. Including me. Especially me."

"You say these things, but you don't mean them." Loki says, his face crumbling and body leaning forward. "When I try, you never listen."

Tony sighs, because it's true. The titan, Maw, the stones. Loki warned him about everything, and he charged right into it. And this time it nearly go them killed.

Loki grips his knees and hisses when the nails dig into healing burns. "You either value my opinion or you do not, you cannot tell me one and do the other."

Tony sucks in a breath. He's tiptoeing on that pit of despair again, but this time he's ready for it. For once not pushing all the bad feelings into a box, he falls to his knees between Loki's legs and tries to remember that tuned-in feeling from the holding cell. The sense of safety that made vulnerability addictive instead of unbearable.

"You're right. You are absolutely right." he says, digging his fingers into Loki's hair and meeting his gaze. "I did something stupid, and rash, and it won't happen again."

No one is more surprised than Tony when Loki leans in and kisses him. His lips taste like copper, which is, okay, ew, don't think about it. Because it's also sweet, and it's something Loki gives purely because he wants to. No hidden permission or Jedi mind tricks. He shows Loki his fear, the real depth of his terror, and Loki leans in. So they kiss, and avoid each other's wounds, and try not to think about their imminent deaths.

And when they're done Tony brushes his teeth. Because, seriously, ew.


	17. Chapter 17

"So what do we do with these?" Tony asks, pacing to the counter of Loki's vanity where two golden apples and a silver sphere rest on a pile of discarded armor.

Loki reaches around Tony and picks up the apples. Inspects runes that wrap around the fruit.

"Destroy them." he says.

"Ah, what?"

Loki holds both apples in one hand and grabs the sphere in the other.

"The children are Jotun, they will live long without the Aesir's magics." Loki says, leaving the bathroom. "We only needed to steal them to deny Thanos power."

"Time out, Pinocchio, your nose just grew."

Loki turns, and Tony almost runs into him. The nose-to-nose staring contest becomes something of a standoff. He steps back, and raises his eyebrows. Waits for an explanation.

Loki sighs. "There is more to the apples than long life. There are powers, mantles, prophecies. I do not want strings attached to my children."

"You would have died if you didn't eat yours." Tony argues.

"Our situation was unique." Loki says, "Until the skin is broken, an apple remains in stasis. I did not realize until-"

Until he started getting weak and decided not to eat the rest. Best not think about that right now, they have newer, shinier tragedies to worry about.

"So Hela has to eat it." Tony infers.

Loki's jaw tenses, and he nods. "Most likely, yes."

"When you say prophecies-" Tony trails off, knowing very well what the legends say.

"Ragnarok." Loki confirms. "Not all Aesir are gods, Anthony. Only those with apples. We do not choose our paths, but we can choose not to take them."

Tony puts his hands in his pockets and absorbs Loki's words. For all that he said, there's a lot more he didn't. That he'd turned down his apple a long time ago. That whatever fate had in store for Loki, he did not want. That he'd changed his mind and accepted the burden in order to give Tony a longer life.

He walks to the dresser a few feet away and slides open his sock drawer, and then the hidden drawer inside the drawer. A stack of worn parchment letters sits inside, along with a picture of Tony and his father, and a small velvet box. He finds the most buried letter and unfolds it. It has holes in the creases, and the bottom right section hangs on by a thread. He reads the words that he knows by heart, and steels himself around the familiar sensation of pieces clicking together far too late.

"Every time I think I know you-" Tony sighs, discarding the letter on the dresser and tapping his palm on his fist in a restless rhythm.

"I meant it. Every word." Loki says.

"Will there ever not be secrets?" Tony asks. "Is there a bottom to this rabbit hole, or am I always gonna find out a million years too late?"

"Must you always assume I had hurtful intentions?" Loki snaps, "We were, both of us, longing for permanence. The price was not relevant."

"It's all relevant." Tony says, throwing up his hands. "Whatever fate that apple tied to you, you didn't want. But you took it on. For me. And you don't think that matters?"

"Weighed against your life? The life of the only person who has cared for me when it did not benefit them? No, it does not."

About eighteen different answers spring up at the same time, but Tony only has one mouth so he winds up gaping like a fish. Because he knew that, of course. It's far from the first time they've discussed Loki's fucked up history, but Angrboða changes things.

A man who's been married with three kids ought to know what he likes in bed. Someone that's spent eight hundred years with one partner ought to know how to talk about their feelings. And they certainly shouldn't stare into Tony's eyes and tell him he's the first person that gave a shit.

He should label it a fib and move on, but Loki's not lying. There's no widening eyes, no attempts at distraction.

"Okay, sure. It's not relevant." Tony concedes, and Loki rubs his temples.

"Now that I have utterly debased myself, may we return to the current problem?"

"Destroying the brat's apples, you mean? Because I don't think that's ethical."

Loki's arm tenses around the apples, and Tony feels his own defenses kick up. The hair on his neck prickles and he tries to stop turning gears that are already in motion. He can see Loki's chest heaving faster, and his nostril flaring. Warning bells sound in his brain. Danger, Will Robinson.

"It's for their protection" Loki says.

"I think it's Fen and Jori's choice."

"They do not need to know."

"You sound like Odin." Tony says, aware of the edge they're walking, of how badly this conversation could turn at the slightest provocation. Slow as a glacier, he lays a hand on Loki's arm. Walking on eggshells is not his talent, but for Loki he's learning.

Loki grits his teeth. "I do this for their protection, not for some self-serving political machinations."

"Put yourself in their place. You can't tell me you wouldn't feel betrayed." Tony says, careful to keep judgement out of his tone. Doubly careful to keep it off his face.

"I do not want this for them. I want them free." Loki seethes.

Tony squeezes his arm. "Then let them decide. That's what freedom means."

Loki thinks very loudly. His eyes are glassy, his face tight, and with a deep centering breath he makes his shoulders ease down. Blinking rapidly, hangs his head. A reciprocal uncoiling works its way up Tony's spine and he blows the tension out his nose.

"I only want them to be safe and happy." Loki says.

"They'll get over whatever scars we leave on them. Have some faith." Tony replies, moving his hand down Loki's arm to the lines at his wrist. He rubs there gently, and watches his relief pass into Loki and unwind him a little more.

"I need… help." Loki admits, each word forced out around a tight throat. Pride tingles out Tony's fingertips and warms Loki's ears. He nods, and takes the silver orb from Loki's palm.

"I'll do the talking. Just listen and make sure I don't butcher the facts."

"Yes, Mr. Stark." Loki says in a much steadier voice, and stands up straight.

Tony smacks Loki's butt playfully. "Now go put clothes on, I wanna get this over with."

Loki's gaze sharpens, and he gives Tony a demure sort of smile. After their game of Slaps he doesn't buy the whole pure maiden shtick, but if that's how Loki wants to play it he's game.

"I hope you'll do the same." Loki quips, looking down his nose at Tony's ripped and stained scrubs.

"Yeah, these are going straight in the incinerator." Tony agrees, heading for the closet.

Pepper goes home after lunch and some intense assurances that they are all fine here. Extra help around the house would have been nice, but they really don't need witnesses for the next task on their list. Getting the UN and the WSC to issue visas for the sprouts has been hard enough without any talk of deism and destiny.

Loki looks devastating in a cream colored henley, the light fabric contrasting with his dark skin. His hair cascades out of a messy bun to fall over one shoulder, but Tony isn't supposed to be thinking about that. He should be choosing his words more carefully as he explains to the godlings that they're… well, gods. Proper gods. With feast days and ideological domains and stuff. But Tony's deathly allergic to responsibility, so mostly he repeats what Loki told him and sprinkles in choice phrases about free will.

Looking around the dining table at his attentive audience, he supposes the jar of peanut butter he put next to the plate of apples was a bit misleading. He meant it as a joke, but in hindsight it's clearly sending the wrong message. Fenrir in particular glares at him like this is another inane vocabulary test, and Tony intentionally picked words he hasn't learned yet. Tony decides to bail himself out with a meme.

"-so, what your dad and I are telling you," he says after a long meandering explanation, "-is that with great power comes great responsibility. And when you're older, you two get to choose if you want your power or not."

"Why is mine not the same?" Hela asks, picking at hir nails. Tony covers his wince with a hit from his third coffee of the day.

"Boys, perhaps you ought to go outside." Loki says softly. Fen and Jori know an order when they hear it. They jump up and scram, whispering between them and glancing over their shoulders at the tense conversation. Tony assumes they'll eavesdrop, because that's what he would've done.

Setting his mug on the table, Tony threads his hands and says, "Now I wanna start by saying that this is not a joke, and your feelings are valid."

"Ok." Hela says warily. Hir fingers continue picking and fiddling. Tony twists his lips and decides he might as well rip off the band-aid in one go.

"A giant purple alien tried to eat it."

Hela eyes the silver orb cooly and angles hir jaw.

"I guess he choked."

Loki snorts from his place at Tony's right.

"Actually, your dad pulled some thrilling heroics." Tony says, giving him a quick look. Loki's pulse flares in his neck, and the slight smile he returns sends a rush of _those feelings_ through Tony's chest.

Focus, Stark. Apples. Godlings. Responsi-tivity.

He clears his throat. "Anyway, the short version is, you don't get a choice like Fen and Jori. Because it's jacked up, your apple's gonna rot or something if you don't eat it now."

"No." Hela says, standing so fast her chair almost bites the dust. "That's not fair!"

Loki looks down into his own mug of tea, clutched between his hands. Tony grips his knee under the table and hits Hela with what Pepper used to call his tortured genius look.

"I got nothing." he says, shaking his head. "It blows, kid, but it is what it is."

"You promised." she screams at Loki, zero to sixty. "You swore you would not send me back."

Loki freezes. Now Tony's the one on his feet, livid.

"Don't you raise your voice at him." Tony warns. "He did everything he could."

"To condemn me to Niflheim?" Hela shouts, "I would rather be dead."

"Well it's not too late, Split Screen. If that's what you want, all you gotta do is wait." Tony snaps.

"Hela-" Loki starts, eyes wide with panic. "Kærr, please."

"You swore an oath to me." ze says in a broken voice, hir true terror starting to erode hir mask.

"And I will honor it. Lady Death will not have you." Loki swears.

"I'm to be the god of death. Our reunion is inevitable." Hela says, cover hir mouth with hir hand. Ze slumps back into hir chair, and hir eyes travel aimlessly around the room.

Tony paces to the end of the table and leans on one hand. "Just drink it, kid. Look at him, he almost died for this."

Hela's skin melts away as ze takes on hir true form, half fleshy and half rotting skeleton. Hir remaining eye takes on an eerie red-orange hue.

"How do I kill this purple man?" ze asks.

"If we knew he'd be a corpse." Tony replies.

With a wave of his golden arrays, he turns the silver sphere into a goblet.

Hela throws it back like a shot, and the metal cup rings like a gong when she slams it down.

"I will carry his bones to Niflheim in a garbage bag." Hela swears. This time Tony actually digs out the gold star stickers and puts one on hir exposed skull. Because if he's gonna be an evil step-dad, he's gonna be the type that supports big dick energy.

Hela all-but forces them to catch hir up. Ze takes it well, but maybe that's not so surprising. Ze did spend a couple centuries hanging with a bunch of dead guys.

By the end Tony isn't paying much attention. That stuff is old news to him. Boring. So he's slouching on the sofa channel surfing while Loki prattles on. The flickering of the TV draws him into a meditative trance. He's brain dead tired, so it feels nice just to space out.

Sitcom, click.

Talk show, click.

Infomercial, click.

Emergency news bulletin, cli-

Wait. Don't click. What's Maria Hill doing on the news?

Tony dials the volume up, and Loki and Hela both turn at the noise.

A matronly reporter reads smoothly from a teleprompter.

"-as many as a hundred thousand citizens marched on the Sokovian capital this morning in an unprecedented public outcry against Tony Stark and the Avengers."

Clips play, and it's like 9/11 all over again. Nothing exists outside of the television and the nauseating repetition of crashes, explosions, and bodies carried on stretchers. Nobody moves. Even Fen and Jori stop scribbling in their coloring books when Tony's name echoes around the walls. The reporter continues.

"Emergency teams successfully located the carrier's blackbox this morning. In a shocking press conference, the FBI released clips showing famed billionaire Tony Stark allegedly attacking Sokovian refugees. President Ellis had this to say:"

The screen flickers with photographer's flashbulbs as the American president stands at a podium surrounded by men and women in suits.

"The Avengers, although formerly a U.S. military initiative, have been a private enterprise since 2012. They are subject to international jurisdiction for crimes not committed on American soil. It is our decision that the Avenger's will not face indictment in an American court."

The camera zooms closer, and Ellis pauses for emphasis. "As President of the United States, I urge the Sokovian government to seek justice through their own official channels."

The television cuts back to the news station, where the aging reporter now addresses Maria Hill. "A former federal agent for the armed forces, Maria Hill is currently employed by the Avengers Corporation and has agreed to shed light on this developing situation. Miss Hill, welcome to the program."

"Thank you, Stacy, I'm glad to be here. I'd like to start off by saying that I cannot confirm or deny any of the allegations."

"And what do you think will happen, if or when they find Mr. Stark?" the reporter asks.

"I can't disclose that at this time. However, the Avengers have agreed to assist the U.S. Marshalls, and the foreign agents in the manhunt, until such time as-"

Tony's mouth hangs open. He can't even begin to worry about disguising his shock, he's too stunned. His head swivels to Loki, and he feels almost betrayed by his partner's calm reserve.

"She is so fired." Tony rasps, standing up and running a hand through his hair. "I can't believe—she is so fucking fired."

Jori's eyes go wide and he whispers way too loudly. "Tony said a bad word."

"Shhh." Fen hisses back. "Shut up, idiot, you're gonna make him mad."

"Don't call him an idiot." Tony says on rote. He paces a circle around the couch and finds himself digging through the junk drawer for the liquor key.

"Son of a bitch." he mumbles, hands shaking as he tosses loose change, key chains, and tape dispensers on the floor.

"Anthony-" Loki starts, rising from his recliner.

Tony whips around at the sound, eyes wide. "Can you believe this shit? They're throwing me under the bus."

"We must remain calm." Loki says carefully, advancing gracefully with his bathrobe hanging from his long arms.

Behind him the screen changes again, only this time it's not news footage or Maria Hill's talking head. It's grainy, pixelated security footage. Iron Man hovers over a mass of humans, firing lasers from his hands and spinning. They miss Ebony Maw, and slice through a dozen helpless Sokovians.

Tony's vision blurs, and just like that he can't breathe. There's no build up, no flurried pause where he notices his chest heaving. He's instantly there.

His hands tremble in the pile of junk and his vision tunnels. All he can think is _where's the key, where's the key, where's the fucking key_. If he doesn't shut his brain down he's gonna die right here.

Indistinct voices bounce off his ears like rubber balls on concrete, and he keeps searching even when his fingers refuse to move. Hands come over his and he jerks away, his hip colliding hard with the kitchen island.

Loki stays a few feet away, voice soft. "Tony-"

"I need a drink."

"You've work very hard to stop drinking."

"Well I need to start again." Tony gasps. His hands grip the marble counter, and cold sweat seeps into his cotton shirt.

"Why don't you sit down." Loki suggests, hands open like he's being arrested.

The room starts to look like some kind of jacked-up kaleidoscope.

Tony shakes his head, but the next thing he knows he's falling to his knees. The tile floor freezes his clammy hands, and he tries to get his lungs on any kind of rhythm. A tall glass appears.

"Here, drink." Loki says, nudging the glass against Tony's hand. He takes it. Loki's intense face and thin lips swim into view, and he follows the cadence of his breathing. It takes forever, this time. He hasn't had an episode like this in months.

Loki keeps him talking, asks him about various machines and inventions.

"What about the letter bot, do you remember that?" Loki prompts, now sitting on the floor nearby.

Tony nods weakly, his hands are still trembling but he can see again. His breathing is close to normal. The glass contains water not booze, and he seems to have drunk most of it.

"I know Fury does." he grunts.

Loki purses his lips. "Where is it now?"

"Downstairs. Bunked it up with DUM-E."

"I have need of it. Wait here." Loki says, rushing downstairs.

Clicking heels climb up the steps and when Loki stops beside him, Tony finally feels rational again. The room looks stretched from the floor, the tall ceilings even taller and the painted figures on them elongated like Slender Man. He can hear the sprouts arguing down the hall. The TV is off. Whoever did that is getting a giant stuffed dog for Christmas.

Loki sets the bot on the island, and scribbles out a note. A long note. Three pages. The envelope gets sealed the old fashion way with a lick to the adhesive edge, and then it goes in the letter bot. His partner walks out the front door. Returns empty handed.

"Wassit?" Tony asks, getting to his feet.

"Fury." Loki says, gathering his bathrobe tighter around his waist. "Officially he can do nothing, but a guilty conscience greatly incentivizes altruism. We shall see what he can offer."

Tony's pocket buzzes. Forty one missed calls, although most of those were already there. The latest is from Steve Rogers. Friend or foe, who can tell anymore. Either way, the council can use the call to get a trace on Tony's phone. He can't take it.

The phone vibrates again, and he almost answers it. The caller ID stops him.

'General Ross-feratu' appears over the incoming call symbol. Oh shit, the feds are involved. And that means Rogers is almost certainly working for them. Actually, all of the Avengers probably are. And Rhodey. They were all there, if they don't cooperate they'll end up fugitives too.

Lightheaded shock recolors their situation. The Avengers are hunting him down. His goddamn teammates are coming to capture him. And they are in the right. He killed people. He didn't know it, couldn't see it, but he knew it was a possibility when he unleashed the stone. He's a murderer.

Loki presses the decline call button and places his hand over Tony's. The sound of crashing metal jolts them into awareness. Tires screech, and a beaming white searchlight passes through the front door.

"Already?" Tony sighs.

Loki grabs him and pulls him down behind the island.

"We need a safehouse." Loki whispers. "Buffalo?"

Tony shakes his head. "They'll search any place I've ever been."

A man on a megaphone yells from the driveway. Exit the premises, hands in the air, the usual stuff. He always wanted to be on an episode of Law and Order. Lesson learned, some dreams are best left unrealized. Tony creeps along the obscuring line of the kitchen cabinets, waving Loki along behind him.

"Asgard?" Loki suggests, like it's the last thing he wants to say.

Tony twists his lip, looking over his shoulder. "We need your magic back."

Loki nods, slinking across the gap between the kitchen and the hallway far more gracefully than Tony is about to.

"Good thing I bought you a new coat then." Loki says.

"I just got a parka. Barely got to wear it." Tony grumbles, crawling to the hallway and grunting when the motion inevitably tweaks his ribs.

Despite the rather dire circumstances, Loki smirks. "Oh, you will look far better in this."

"Leather?" Tony guesses.

Loki quirks an eyebrow. "Wool. With leather sleeves and lapels."

"Betrayer. Playing dress up without me." Tony teases, following Loki into the hall.

"You were busy, always off Avenging." Loki says, faux innocent. "It was dreadful. Only excessive spending could console me."

Human silhouettes cut black shapes out of the searchlight's path, and the voice cuts out from the megaphone. A Quinjet rounds the building, it's twin lights shining through the windows of the ocean view balcony.

"Oh come on, in my own damn jet?" Tony growls, "That's just tacky."

Loki ignores him, hurrying down the hall to the line of bedrooms. He gathers up the bits and their half-packed bags, hustling them with the efficiency of half a millennium of practice.

This time Tony has the foresight to throw extra underwear in his pre-packed emergency back. For all he knows, they aren't coming back and he's not keen on loincloths. The hillbilly shades and blindfold get thrown in too, and a toothbrush. It's funny, the things that seem important when you're up against the wall. Half practical necessities, half random nonsense.

The Marshals get through the front door pretty quick, given that it's glass. Bulletproof glass, sure, but they have a fucking battering ram. There's more shouting, the shuffling of at least a dozen armed agents, and then Steve Roger's voice invades the house.

"Tony, I know we haven't gotten along all that well in the past. And I'm sure you've got good reasons for going to ground-"

The arrays appear around his clenched fists, and Loki grips his shirt.

"Going to ground? We were beamed up, how did they not see that?" Tony says.

"They're hands are tied." Loki whispers.

Tony huffs. "I designed and paid for every vehicle, weapon, and piece of armor their using."

The goon squad sweeps the building while Rogers makes his appeals. The coordinated line of men in riot gear fan out and start searching. Despite the talk of peaceful surrender, they're carrying an awful lot of firepower.

"Running only makes you look guilty." Rogers says, inside the house now, close enough to put down the megaphone and speak for himself. "Me, Clint, Natasha, Thor, we only want to clear your name. So why don't you come on out and let us help you?"

"Move, Stark." Loki hisses sharply, throwing a heavy coat over Tony's shoulders and pulling him along by the lapels.

"I'm forgetting something." Tony says, letting himself be dragged along. He racks his brain, frantically reviewing everything he picked up today, everything he touched.

A cluster of men with buzz cuts and bulletproof vests turns the corner, and then there's a lot of guns pointed at them. Men shout indistinctly in the living room, and Loki shoves him and the bits through the nearest door. It's the kids bathroom, the counter lined with wolf-chewed rubber ducks and the mirror "decorated" with stickers Tony never got around to peeling off. A portal appears over the fish-and-dolphin shower curtain.

Loki picks up Jori and slings an overstuffed duffle over his other shoulder. He waves a hand in front of Tony's nose, his mouth stretched in an exasperated line.

"Tony, by the Norns-"

Guns cock on the other side of the door. No windows in the bathroom, so even in the mid-afternoon it's dark. Light slips under the door from the hallway until booted feet block it out.

"Come out with your hands up." Steve says in a muffled command, "I don't want to fight you."

"What's your problem?" Hela whispers, halfway through the portal and loaded with luggage like a pack mule. "Let's go."

"We're missing something." Tony repeats, searching Loki's eyes. It's itching at him, something important. Something heavy collides with the other side of the door, and they all jump. Jori starts crying. Loki holds him tighter, and in the middle of telling the kid to be quiet he whips his head to Tony.

"The apples." Loki says, stricken.

The battering ram slams into the door a second time. Wood crunches, splinters flying across the tile floor. A third hit sounds immediately after the second, and this time it punches a hole clean through.

A red dot travels along the wall and stops on Tony's chest. Loki tackles him into the portal, and they land in a heap in a snowy wilderness. His ribs radiate a biting pain that almost matches the shock of freezing air on his lungs.

"The apples, we need-" Tony says, panicking.

"I can do it." Hela insists, dropping hir burdens and shifting into a U.S. Marshall. Damn, ze didn't used to be able to change hir clothes. Ze must have practiced while he was off unleashing evil murder bots and becoming a super villain. Loki doesn't hesitate, he shoves Jori into Tony's arms and summons a new portal. Without a word he and Hela jump through, and in the space of seconds he's alone with two blue brats in tank tops and cargo shorts.

Son of a bitch, he's stranded.

Fen clutches Tony's leg. "Where are we?"

Tony shivers, holding Jori on his middle and zipping the coat over both of them.

"What, you don't recognize your home planet?" he says, shoving his rapidly freezing hands into deep pockets. There are gloves hidden in one of them, black leather with the paper packaging still attached. Something like appreciation flares up in his chest at Loki's foresight, and he rips the tags off with his teeth.

"It's cold." Fenrir complains, and Tony pulls him under the long tails of the wool coat.

"That's 'cause your human right now, dingus. Go blue."

The kid complies. It's better for Tony too, the extra heat. For lack of a better plan, he stays with the pile of luggage and huddles against the wind.

After a decent night's sleep and two square meals, the forest isn't so ominous. Not that it's especially pleasant, but there is a savage beauty to the crystalline whiteness and pitch black trees. The sky overhead looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, clear and swirling with galaxies normally invisible behind Earth's atmosphere.

The cold brings with it a lancing clarity. This is his life now. Gods, aliens, running from the authorities. They make it look fun in the movies. Funny how the devil-may-care protagonists never seem to mention the crippling fear, the numbing sensation of toes catching frostbite, or the underlying knowledge that Tony chose all of this. He could've kept on being the genius billionaire. Could have banged hot models until he succumbed to senility and old age from the comfort of his penthouse.

A soft snow falls and dusts his hair white. As if the universe hears his thoughts and wants to mock him. Fen and Jori grumble and complain while they wait and he just nods along. Answers their questions about the Marshalls. No, they don't want to hurt us. They're good guys that work for the government. Tony did something bad, so they came to put him in time out.

"You can't run from time out!" Jori argues, affronted.

"Don't be dumb, Jori. Tony's not like regular people, he doesn't get time out."

Shame eats away at him, the video of him slaughtering innocents repeating over and over in his head.

"I'm not special." he murmurs, unsure how to explain. "Your dad and I… we have a job to do. But when we're finished, I'll be punished like everyone else."

"Time out sucks." Fenrir replies sagely, peeking his head from Tony's coat to give him a pitying look. It breaks Tony's soul, the half comprehension. The earnest sympathy of a kid who thinks they're talking about Tony sitting in the corner for five minutes. If he killed even one person he'll be in Earth's highest security corner for a lot longer. Life without parole.

"Rules protect people." Tony says, head ringing and his fingers stiff in his pockets, "If we don't follow them, we're no better than the bad guys."

He means it. Desperate as he is to run from this, he knows he won't. Can't. So many times he's been on TV and stood in Senate hearings preaching his gospel of world peace, clean energy, and corporate accountability. It wasn't bullshit. Even when he had other motives for saying it, he meant every word. He can't just turn around on that now he's the one facing consequences.

When a swirling black portal appears nearby, he sees himself in the murky depths. Loki and Hela step through, covered in concrete dust and holding an apple each.

Loki throws off his ruined bathrobe and brushes dust off his favorite charcoal joggers.

"Another house bites the dust." Tony quips.

Loki grimaces. "I fear it is becoming a pattern.

"Nobody was hurt." Hela says defensively, shifting into Jotun and favoring Tony with a perceptive look. "Do not worry."

"Why would I worry about that?" Tony asks weakly, trudging through deep snow to stand beside Loki. His partner slides the apple and his hand into Tony's left pocket, and something fierce and needy in his mind clings to that.

Loki casts his gaze around the disorganized pile of luggage. "Well, let's get everything together. We shouldn't keep Angrboða waiting."

"We're expected?" Tony mutters. Loki gives him a sidelong glare.

"Our magics are bonded. She will have sensed my arrival." he says lowly, "Paranoid arse."

"Fool me once." Tony says lightly, but cups Loki's hand in his pocket to soften the blow. They both know he's justified in his suspicion, even if Loki would rather pretend otherwise.

"I know. That was a compliment." Loki says. He attempts a deadpan, but his lip twitches on one side.

Tony rolls his eyes to stop himself from mooning like a starstruck teenager and nudges Fenrir out from under his coat.

"Load up, pack mules. This stuff won't carry itself." he says, clapping his hands behind Hela's butt like a cattle rancher in a spaghetti western.

The trek is grueling, more so from the added weight of Jori on his tender ribs than the distance. He'd pass the moocher off on someone else, but Loki and Hela are already loaded down with bags, and Fen can barely walk through snow higher than his knees.

A black stone obelisk stands sentinel over the white landscape, and Loki leads them toward it. Coming closer, the snow gives way to an icy platform carved out of the permafrost, surrounded by nine statues of wolves in various poses.

A narrow door cuts into the bottom of the onyx spire, and he's half expecting Loki to offer his first born as a blood sacrifice. The ice platform is clean and dusted with fresh white snow, so he figures Hela's safe for now. Loki sets down his bags and tugs down the zipper of Tony's coat. He pulls Jori out by the armpits and sets him on his hip.

"Do you remember when you were very small, and sneaked out of the house to see me?" he asks, petting Jori's hair.

The kid nods, eyebrows pinched in concentration.

"I need you to do that again. Go in and find your Machem. Understand?"

"Ok, daddy." Jori says, squirming until Loki lets him down.

Tony watches the biter approach the obelisk, concerned.

"Machem?"

"Carrier." Loki says, "The parent who bore the child."

"Which makes you?" Tony asks, although he's already missed the terminology boat by a good nine months.

"Aleha." Loki says. "The caregiver. Once the babe is born, the carrier's job is done. The aleha does everything else. Or so Angrboða argued for the better half of a millennia."

Jori reaches the wall, and Tony jumps when the kid walks right through the stone. Not like Loki does, where it looks like he's walking through but he's actually teleporting. The kid goes all shimmery and transparent, and walks through.

Loki chuckles. "He used to slip through his crib while he slept."

"You know, someone really should have slapped a disclaimer on your ass. 'Not suitable for sainer partners. Discretion advised.'" Tony huffs, zipping his coat again.

After a short pause, a grinding noise sounds from within the stone, and the slot widens. If there's a crystal skull in there, Tony's bailing. The last thing he needs is a bunch of cursed cave Indiana Jones bullshit. The grinding gets louder, and within the dim doorway he can see layers of interlocking doorways opening one at a time in a complicated mechanism.

The final door opens with a stuttering scrape of rock on rock, and an imposing figure stands on the other side with Jori in their arms. Loki steps into the threshold, and Tony follows suit.

Angrboða looms over them. They are easily a foot taller than Loki, not including the springy cloud of red hair or the corkscrew horns . With a back as broad as a linebacker's and hands the size of dinner plates, Jori's looks like a football in their arms.

Tony swallows down the possessive caveman impulse to drag Loki off and scribble 'Property of Tony Stark' on his forehead. It's absurd, because Angry Buddha clearly hates Loki's guts, but that doesn't stop his hind brain from going full defensive.

"Machem!" Fen yells, his face lighting up. The kid runs full force into Angrboða's meaty leg, and Tony feels paralyzed. He thought the puppy was allergic to smiling. Angrboða grabs the kid by a horn and bites his nose.

It looks aggressive, Tony steps forward on impulse to intervene. Loki grabs his arm.

Fenrir howls with laughter and tries to climb up Angrboða's leg, demanding to be picked up. Jori squirms in the giant's other hand, and without much thought they trade one child for the other. Fenrir paws roughly at Angrboða's horns, licking their face. It's weird. Like he's a totally different kid.

As soon as he's recovered from that shock, Jori lands emotional punch number two. Glancing back, he runs past Loki and directly to Tony.

"Did I do it right?" he asks, nervous. Tony glances at Loki, but he's useless. Just staring at Jori like he's speaking gibberish.

"Yeah, champ, that was super cool." Tony says. Jori makes the grabby hands and Tony hesitates. His skin prickles. Angrboða glares daggers at him. Jori's face falls when Tony doesn't pick him up, and that hits him right in the gooey center. Hoisting him up double speed doesn't exactly undo the damage, and it definitely doesn't do his injuries any favors, but whatever.

Angrboða's brows drop in an edgy line.

"Thank you for allowing us inside." Loki says, unusually civil. Then again Tony would be too if he was in a marriage dispute with someone that imposing.

Angrboða says something in Aesir. Loki frowns.

Hela steps forward. Ze's been busy lugging the bags inside, and there's a faint sheen of sweat on hir brow when ze finally steps up to stiffly greet hir parent with a half-hearted bow. Ze offers hir right arm to Angrboða, and the Jotun grips hir elbow in something like a handshake.

"Tony does not speak our tongue. We speak English around him." ze explains. It's polite in the way Loki can be when he's telling you to fuck off. Angrboða growls out a string of alien words and Hela lets go, abruptly.

"I have learned much from his planet, and I like him." ze says, and goes to pick up the bags again. That's as close as Hela's ever come to a compliment. Fen glares at her, climbing to sit on Angrboða's shoulders and suddenly the rivalry makes a lot of sense. Fenrir is a goddamn wolf, obviously he'd be the favorite.

Angrboða frowns, their words awkward and heavily accented. "Iron Wood different now."

Loki hoists up the remaining luggage. "Clearly. Where is my cottage?"

"Follow." Angrboða says, bouncing Fenrir higher up their back and stalking down a short flight of stairs.

A gatekeeper waits at the end of the tunnel. With a stomp of his foot, a circle in the floor turns to ice. It drops several feet without warning, and Tony would've fallen if not for Loki's hand on his arm.

The gatekeeper laughs loudly, pointing at him and slapping his leg. Apparently open mockery is socially acceptable around here. Loki tenses at his side, and Tony brushes it off before violence ensues. He fakes a shared laugh, and gives Loki a business smile so he knows it's fine.

The disc of ice sinks steadily after the initial fall, slowly lowering them below the surface of the ice. They come out the other side, and it's a real struggle to play it cool. Below the ice is a massive hollow cavern, like a sinkhole or a caldera. Thick metal beams extend from the muddy floor and up through the frozen ceiling.

If he stares any harder his eyes might fall out of his head. Fen gasps from Angrboða's shoulders, and he shoots rapidfire questions that they answer in low, even tones.

Jori grips Tony's collar in his fist, and gives him a wide eyed look of wonder. The shameless excitement has him smiling back without meaning to.

"Some years ago the lake beneath the ice sunk, and the nine tribes of this region were without clean water. They combined their efforts to construct a support system to keep the surface ice undisturbed." Loki translates. "It provides insulation from the planet's turbulent weather, and allows them to grow crops which would failed on the surface."

Crystal blue water floods the bottom of the cavern, and a series of rusted levies contain the pools in stepped reservoirs. The lowest level is dry, and Tony can see sizable gardens. A handful of spindly Jotun pace the rich, dark soil, tending to lines of leafy vegetables and chasing off blue creatures that look like hairless rabbits.

Tony follows the herd of rodents as they climb up nearby ramps and onto a network of crisscrossing bridges. Houses and shops are built into the beams, round like seeds and made of stretched hide. The walls of the buildings glow like Chinese lanterns, the internal light casting shadows whenever figures move inside. The brilliant orange homes seem to float on the cool beams, flickering like fireflies.

The temperature rises the lower they go, probably due to the large heat exchange mechanisms mounted to the cavern walls. Near the bottom it stabilizes at a balmy half-warmth and Tony unzips his coat.

The gatekeeper slows their descent near a sort of landing pad. Young Jotun loiter there, giggling and chasing naked rabbits with brooms and clapped hands. Their arrivals seems to end the fun, because when they step off the lift the kids all bow at the waist. He's used to swarming fans and paparazzi but this is different.

There's a frightened edge to the attention, all of them gaping at his white eyes and pale skin. He feels like a glow stick. Suddenly he wants to buy Rhodey a steak dinner for every whitewashed gala event he dragged him to over the years.

They walk a winding path through the village, around seed pod homes with papery walls and past mirror-like ponds with rainbow fish swimming near the surface. All the Jotun they pass stop and bow. With the kids he chalked it up to manners, but when the big lugs draped in fur and armor follow suit he figures Angrboða's the big cheese around here.

They lead him under an archway decorated with orange streamers and bone charms hanging from ropes. Small scraps of parchment hang from strings with pictographic writing in them. It looks like a Tibetan shrine.

"If your house is made of gingerbread I'm out." Tony mutters.

Loki chuckles beside him and doesn't comment.

Further down the path stands a tall stone foundation with a rotting little witch's cottage on it. The raised ground is perfectly circular, and cut from a different color of rock.

Loki gapes. "You horrible witch, what have you done to my house?"

Angry Buddha doesn't comprehend. They step on the platform and Tony eyes the water dripping from the sagging thatch roof. If there isn't black mold somewhere in there, he will eat a boot. Loki repeats the question in alien, and Angrboða cocks their eyebrows in a dark look of amusement.

"Saved." they say, "Loki thank."

"Loki angry." Loki squawks, rushing to the soggy cottage and inspecting the rotten beams. It looks out of place, alone on the edge of town. Built of grey stone and lumber rather than stretched hide, it doesn't seem to be faring well in the wet environment. A crooked chimney props up one side, and the moss covering the roof is stained with soot around the smoke stack. The whole thing gives Tony serious Hansel and Gretel vibes.

Angry Buddha swings the door open and he almost chokes on the heavy aroma of incense. It's bigger on the inside, because of course it is. The main room seems to be a multi-purpose space, crammed to the gills with junk. Wood display cases line the walls, shelves sagging under the weight of glass-jarred ingredients. A marble statuette of a griffon guards the door, and a rickety model of Yggdrasil rests on the pane of a window nearby.

A long wood table consumes most of the square footage, although there are only four chairs, and the rest is piled high with scrolls of parchment and books. The other major space taker is an extravagant canopy bed in the corner, complete with brocade drapes and wood paneling inlaid with fleur de lis. A layer of dust covers everything, from the diamond pane windows to the rough hewn fireplace.

"So how do I hire a maid service on Jotunheim?" Tony asks, setting Jori on his feet. "Do you think they accept pebbles? Or would sharp sticks have a higher exchange rate?"

"Not so open minded now, are you?" Loki replies, eyes narrowed.

Angrboða's frizzy hair grazes the rafters as they walk to rummage in a cabinet that looks like a lunchbox next to them. Clearly the house wasn't built for giants. With a clunk of objects shifting, they pull out a pair of small golden devices shaped kind of like fishhooks.

Angrboða slides the larger of the two over their ear, and holds the other out for Tony. He almost doesn't want to take it. It's definitely a translator, and if she can understand him he'll have to stop being rude. Shrugging, he slips it over his ear.

The giant regards him with a stern eyes, shifting from foot to foot. He shares their anxiety, because he doesn't really know what to say either. The only thing they have in common is a weakness for emotional masochism. At least he assumes so, since at one time or another they both fucked Loki on a regular basis. He holds out his hand.

"This is a handshake. It's a Midgard thing. You grab my hand, and we shake them up and down as a sign of peace. Whether or not you actually want peace is up to you."

Angrboða shifts their weight and takes his hand. They shake, and after the normal amount of time they continue shaking. Tony worms his hand out with a forced smile.

"It pleases me that Loki seeks blessing this time." Angrboða says.

"Excuse me?" Tony replies, eyebrows raised.

The Jotun sits at the table, barely managing to balance themself on on a too small chair. They motion for Tony to sit across.

"Before taking a second wife." they say magnanimously, "I was not given my proper rights when he wed his child bride. Your deference honors me."

Tony blinks, and maybe he hasn't really learned his lesson about thinking before he acts. Because when he realizes Angrboða thinks he's here to respect their authority, he laughs in their face.


	18. Chapter 18

"I'm gonna stop you right there." Tony says, stiffening his lip to hold back poorly timed amusement. "I'm not here to-"

He can't help it, he snorts and covers his face to get a grip. It's just so absurd. He exchanges a glance with Loki, and the stiff posture tells him all he needs to know. He wants Tony to handle this.

Tony takes a deep breath and continues, "Here's the deal, Big Easy, we're only here because Loki needs you. I'm not looking for a group hug or anything."

Angrboda shoots a dirty look at Loki's back. He's fussing over the brats, getting bags sorted and igniting a log in the musty fireplace the old fashioned way.

"He has done what I asked. I will entertain your request."

Tony eyes Loki too, at that. "What exactly did he agree to?"

"Did he not discuss it with you?" Angrboda asks with a knowing smile and daggers in their eyes.

They're not just trying to rile him, they're sussing out how well he knows Loki. Whether he's a legitimate ally or a dupe Loki will discard once he's no longer useful. Tony understands the need for that.

Dragging out the chair across from Angrboda, he spins it around and sits with his arms on the back. To spare his ribs mostly, but if it looks cocky then he'll count that as a bonus.

"I was busy making him accept my help. You know how that goes." he says, tilting his head and affecting a put-upon expression.

Angrboda leans back in the chair and crosses their arms. "If he has strength left to resist, then he does not really need help. Your time was wasted."

That does raise Tony's hackles a bit, because it's so ridiculously untrue. With Loki you commit or you regret, and it unsettles him that Loki's ex doesn't know that.

He covers his agitation with a shrug. "Well he's with me now, so I'm gonna guess your approach didn't work. Here's what I need-"

"I don't care about your needs." Angrboda scoffs.

"What about your children? You care about seeing them?" Tony asks, dropping his fake smile.

"If you wished to threaten, you would not do it sitting down." Angrboda says.

They size each other up across the table, and the patience on their face surprises Tony. The somewhat spiritual tranquility lurking under the defensive words. Much as they would prefer for Tony to roll over, they don't want to fight either. Which is good, that's something they can agree on.

"Loki's magic is on the fritz." Tony says, "Apparently you can do something about that."

Angrboda considers, and their unwavering stillness unnerves Tony. He can hardly sit still for thirty seconds, and they haven't so much as twitched a finger in five minutes. Tony waits for them to answer, but they just sit there nodding and thinking for an awkward amount of time.

The tension breaks with the chink of porcelain. Loki arranges a set of dainty white teacups around the table, bone white with blue and gold dragons flying around the rims. He's flustered, fussing with the handles until they sit at perfect right angles and returning to the firepit to fill a matching pot.

Tony inspects the one in front of him. It reminds him of strained talks with his mother during breaks from boarding school. Loki returns with the teapot in hand, and brushes aside a half-open scroll to make way for a double handled sugar bowl.

"I hope you'll forgive my poor behavior yesterday." he says, filling Agraboda's cup with a smooth pouring motion. The air fills with steam and a spicy, herbal aroma. Tony opens his mouth to argue, but Loki shoots him a look. He steps around the table to fill his and Tony's cup, and sits at Tony's right.

Angrboda sniffs, lifting the lid off the sugar bowl and spooning out two cubes.

"There is no shame in suffering. What I object to is self-pity." they say, stirring in the sugar with a surprisingly delicate gesture for such a large hand.

"Then I apologize for that." Loki says, lifting his cup and blowing on his steaming tea. He purses his lips, and with some resignation lowers the cup to rest in his other hand. "My mother died. Some months ago."

"She was murdered." Tony corrects, and Loki's jaw clenches.

"And not long before that-" Loki sighs, squeezing his eyes shut as he works through whatever he's feeling. "Two years before that, I learned she was not my mother at all. Nor was Odin my father."

Angrboda draws a thoughtful sip. "Then you know already what is wrong. You do not need me."

"That was two years ago, and I recovered within hours. This cannot be the same." Loki argues, and now Tony's lost. He glances between the two of them, confused.

"You patched together your previous identity. Adaptation is not the same as growth." Angrboda says.

Tony runs a hand through his hair. "Okay, can we stop with the cryptic tarot card talk?"

"I'm being accused of forgetting who I am." Loki grumbles, finally taking a sip of his own tea.

"Damn your pride." Angrboda huffs, "I said nothing of forgetting. You are born to change, yet you fear losing yourself in it. This has always been your weakness."

"That's ridiculous." Tony says, slouching on the back of the chair. All Loki does is change. Change faces, change plans. He's a blur of a person as far as Tony's concerned.

 _Is it?_ their eyes seemed to say, while Loki grimaces and hides behind his cup.

Angrboda shifts their weight and sighs. "You wish to sit on a cushion and be given an answer. There is no shortcut. A bone mended improperly must be broken again."

The rattle of china punctuates the end of the conversation as Angrboda places their cup on the saucer and stands. "Find me when you are ready to learn. Come young ones, let me show you where I live."

"Hey, you can't just-" Tony starts.

Fenrir dashes out from what looks like a bedroom in wolf mode, with Jori riding on his back. He runs a circle around Angrboda, and the unprecedented enthusiasm kills Tony's resistance. They're not his kids, they never were. He needs to get that through his skull already.

Jori looks over his shoulder as Fenrir trots out the door behind his parent, and Tony makes himself smile and wave. The kid smiles back, and reluctantly lets himself be carried away.

"I mean, be back by sun…" Tony looks out the window and sees a grey ice wall. "Uh, by dinnertime. I guess. Yeah."

"Hela?" Angrboda calls. Hela doesn't move from the rocking chair where ze's made hirself comfortable by the fire.

"Splitscreen, you going?"

Hela pulls hir face into something Tony thinks is supposed to be a pout. It doesn't really gel with hir goth look. Ze looks more like ze's holding in a fart.

"I don't feel good." ze says, and if he hadn't already decided ze was faking it, hir tone would have done it.

"Hela-" Loki sighs, like he's only half there. Tony stands up and paces over to the rocking chair.

"You know the best thing about being immortal, sweetcheeks? You don't get sick. Come on, up and out." Tony says, tipping the chair forward until Hela slides out.

"I hate you." ze says without conviction.

"You and the rest of the universe." Tony says, walking hir out. "Just go for an hour and come back."

The door closes like a gable falling in a courtroom. Loki hasn't moved. Tony shucks off his coat and throws it over the stone griffon's wing. When he turns, Loki stares at him. Judge, meet jury.

"That went well." Tony says, resting his hands on his hips.

"Perhaps if you did not immediately threaten her…" Loki drawls.

"Okay, first of all, this is clearly a they/them situation-"

Loki slams a fist on the table, and the china clinks like a chorus of applause.

Tony sets his jaw, pulse rising. "And second, I'm not about to let them come in here and tell me whether or not our relationship is valid."

"Oh, well you certainly showed her." Loki rolls his eyes, trading his empty teacup for the untouched one intended for Tony.

"Them, Loki, it's a gender-" Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know what, ask Hela. I don't really get it. The point is, I don't see how your shitty past is connected to your mojo no-go situation."

"Magic is the product of seidr and focus." Loki says, rotating the teacup in the saucer.

"Like a wizard staff."

Loki nods. "Frigga practiced a special art, the magic of tricks and deception. She taught me to cast using myself as the prism."

"So whenever you change, you have to change how you cast as well."

"And if I change significantly-"

"Like if you found out your whole life was a lie-" Tony says, catching on.

"Then it would interfere with my seidr, yes." Loki says, still gazing down at his tea and nudging the handle back and forth.

"Well, that's a lead. That's great news." Tony replies, taking Loki's hand.

Loki tugs it back, turning his body away.

"Isn't it?" Tony asks. He leans around, but Loki won't meet his eyes. His stomach starts to churn.

"I have changed much in courting you." he admits. "I've come to question things which did not previously trouble me."

"You think-" Tony says, and the wounded sound in his voice is not what he intends. It just slithers into his words without permission.

Loki's shoulders hunch, and he takes a shaky drink of tea. Lowers the cup to his lap.

"What else can it be?" Loki says, hunching his shoulders.

Tony reaches out, and Loki stands up. Walks over to sit in the rocking chair and stare into the flames of the fireplace.

"You can't actually think that our relationship fucked you up." Tony says, dazed. Too wrong footed to fully react. He sounds hurt, and Loki fidgets.

He rests his chin in his hand and quietly says, "I need to think."

"I understand." Tony says, even though he doesn't. Not in the slightest.

Shuffling to the door, he grabs his coat from the griffon and shrugs it back on. Zips it up and slides the blinder shades from the pocket. Puts those on too. The black leather lapel is baby smooth on his neck, and when he pulls on the gloves he notices the buttons match. No detail spared.

"It's a nice coat." he says on his way out the door.

Loki puts on a tiny, sad smile and nods. "Thank you."

"I'll come back." he says, because Loki's never left him without saying something similar. And drags the door shut behind him.

Once he's outside, he has no idea where to go. So he wanders. Red eyes follow his every step and he bears with like the celebrity he is. Pretends he can't feel the attention drilling into his skull like bullets. The aether boils just beneath the surface, and he shivers. Keeps half and eye on it the whole time.

He chats up a few Jotun with the help of the ear cuff of Babel, and is a bit embarrassed to discover that their currency actually is rocks. Shiny magic rocks, but still rocks. Which makes him both right, and an asshole for joking about it.

Eventually he tires of the eyeballs on his back, and asks the nearest merchant where the big boss lives. The old lady points a knobby finger at the central support beam, and tells him to go all the way up.

The spiral stairs make him kind of dizzy, so he summons the suit and flies. Who needs functioning neurons? Not Tony. He could die any day now, fighting a grape man on a foreign planet and wishing he had one last Ben and Jerry's.

Angrboda's place wraps all the way around the beam like a donut and glows a vibrant yellow through the hide walls. Inside the kids are all sitting on woven bean bag looking things, munching two halves of some kind of gourd and listening to Hela bitch out their machem about cultural sensitivity. Honestly, it's pretty cathartic to see someone else fall below her social justice standards for once.

"Hey, Slayer, do they happen to have Starbucks on this iceberg?" he asks without greeting, wiping his shoes on the doormat. "I need somewhere to charge my MacBook and hide my inner pain."

Hela whips around, trailing off. "Something is wrong?"

"Artistic differences." Tony shrugs. "Seriously, there has to be a park or something. Beer garden? War monument?"

"The Iron Wood boasts the grandest shrines on Jotunheim." Angrboda says.

Ick. Religion.

"Sounds Perfect." Tony says, "Anybody up for a field trip?"

The kids inhale their snacks at a pace Tony can only call breathtaking, and throw on their shoes. Angrboda leads the way, and when they shoot the Iron Man armor a sideways glance Tony banishes it.

Circling down the stairs, the giant says, "You are not what I expected."

"Funny. You're exactly what I expected." Tony says, rolling his shoulders against the cool air. He lingers at the back, making sure Fen and Jori don't fall off. Or, more likely, push each other.

There are small passages splitting off from the main cavern, and some of them have paths that presumably go places. Angrboda leads them down one, and through a meandering tunnel that opens to a sort of grotto. With a garden of iron tree sculptures and tablets covered in pictogram messages, it looks like Superman's fortress of solitude. Sticks of burnt incense stick out of the ground in front of the tablets, and Angrboda leads the bits to one on the far side.

"This is the Shrine of the Ancestors. A place to seek guidance from our fore bearers."

They kneel and Angrboda shows the little biters how to light the sticks and pray. Tony hangs back. Mystic mumbo jumbo got about as far in the Stark Mansion as a bottle of scotch. Which was not very far. His mother wore a cross, but that was mostly for the newspapers. A remnant of a time where nonconformity meant treason and trial by anti-communist fanatics.

He watches them kumbaya for a couple minutes and feels like an intruder, so he pokes around the cavern. There's a tiny alcove at the back with about a thousand paper cards hanging on it. Sliding a hand between the dangling cards, he holds them aside and peeks through the low doorway.

The inside is lit by iridescent purple rocks that give the secluded crevice an ominous atmosphere. Flagstones are set into the floor in a radial design, and banners of fabric hang from the cardinal directions in brilliant scarlet and azure. And in the center is a statue standing with its arms open in welcome. It's eerie, a smooth and featureless oval where the face should be.

A minefield of incense surrounds the statue, sticking up like a forest of burnt twigs. Tony's fingers tingle with the press of foreign magic, and he steps inside. Power surges, pulsing in from the walls like a magnetic and the statue changes shapes. The statue warps and flexes until it reforms in the shape of a man in a three piece suit with a receding hairline and a bristled mustache.

Tony checks his pulse, and for once he's horrified to discover a healthy resting heart rate. There's no PTSD to blame. His brain doesn't want to accept what his eyes are seeing. He's stuck, eyes wide with his gloved hands fisted at his sides as if a punch could protect him from a ghost.

"Always knew you were a pansy." Howard Stark slurs, his stone body listing in his usual drunken stumble. "Momma's boy, always crying-"

Tony steps back, and hates himself for it. Bullies feed off of fear, how could he forget? He can feel himself shrinking in his head, and only their equal height grounds him in the present.

"What is this?" Tony grits through his teeth.

Howard inspects the ornate tapestries. "Cave of Wonders. You've got questions, I can tell. Don't you want answers before you die?"

"Not from you, I don't."

"Tony, Tony, Tony, you break your old man's heart. If you really wanted someone else I'd be someone else."

The aether flows out of him, crawling out like slimy fingers and wrapping around the statue.

Howard laughs. "Go ahead, use your parlor trick. You'll only deny yourself ancient wisdom."

"You're not really him." Tony says, knowing how stupid he sounds. He's talking to a statue, obviously it's not his father.

"Do you want to debate the nuances of reality? Or do you want to know what I really think of you?"

The aether bubbles and flexes, and Tony draws it back in. Just hearing his father's voice drags him years into the past, reminds him of the dark presence that hung over his childhood. The insidious drive to do more, work harder, be tougher so the next time he came home he'd finally be good enough.

He should leave, he should. There's nothing to be gained from whatever bizarre Jotun oracle he stumbled upon. His gut rolls, and he takes another step back. He doesn't want to know, or, more accurately, he already does. _Sensitive, weak, coward, sissy._

"I don't have to justify my life to you." Tony says.

Howard grins, all teeth and drunken mania. It's uncanny, exactly the look he always wore before he insulted Tony's latest attempts to earn his approval. All that shame and hatred he's condensed into workaholic fuel and alcoholic grief gasses up and comes back to his mind. His hands shake, and he wants to cut them off.

"Everything I did, and that's all you have to say? Shouldn't I get what I deserve?" Howard says.

"You don't deserve the breath it would take to say it all." Tony says, but the suggestion worms its way down. Even as he's trying to walk out, his brain is drumming up all the shit he's lived with. All the shit his father made him believe about himself, the shit those beliefs made him do.

"Fine, prove me right. Run away and cry to your little ladyboy." his dad says, and Tony's mind blanks. The gauntlet to the iron man suit appears on his arm like an extension of his body, and the energy he shoots from the repulsor feels like pure rage. It hits the back wall, and the chunks of ice that shatter off seem to mock him.

"Ok I'll bite. You know what I wonder, dad? I wonder how the fuck you lived with yourself." Tony shouts, glaring at the undamaged statue, "I look at those kids, and I try to imagine telling them what you said to me. They copy everything I do like I'm some kind of hero. And all I think, every single day, is how the fuck did you look at me and say what you did?"

"I worried about you. If I didn't toughen you up they would have eaten you alive." Howard says. His face is guilt ridden, sincere and it hurts like nothing Tony's ever felt. Like being ripped open from the inside out.

"Well you did that, dad." Tony yells, "Mission accomplished! You nearly killed me from six feet under. Four trips to the ICU for alcohol, two for cocaine. I did whatever it took to shut down the part of me you said was weak."

Tony's pacing, he realizes, waving his arms around like some ranting lunatic. But he can't stop, his thoughts keep circling around and around. It's a supernatural force, this useless grief he's never let himself feel. There was always something more pressing. Corporate takeovers, media scandals, rehab, terrorists, aliens from outer space. Pepper. Fuck he spent years ruining Pepper's life, thinking he could bury this under his desire to be good enough for her.

"And now? You know the fucking piece de resistance? Now I finally let myself care about someone, you're ruining that too. I am terrified I'm gonna hold too tight. I can't relax, I can't trust myself, because every time I let go I turn into you. I get mad, I yell, I push him around, and when he looks at me I see mom."

"Your mother and I had a complicated relationship." Howard says, and Tony is very aware of how he doesn't acknowledge the rest of Tony's accusations.

The statue's imitation is flawless, honestly. From its casual dismissal of Tony's words, to it's masterful impersonation of calm appearance of rationality that made Tony feel like the defective one, like he was a stain on his father's honorable, industrious legacy.

"You abused her-" Tony says, and he isn't prepared for how the words steal his breath. For how hard it is to say it out loud. "You threatened her. You…"

Tony can't breath. His throat is dry and caught on nothing. The statue freezes, like his inability to finish his sentence puts the whole scene on hold. There's a pressure squeezing his throat, and he realizes it's him. He's holding himself back, because over that line lay pure darkness he's never shared with anyone. He presses his knuckles in his eyes so hard he sees spots, and the noise that comes out of his mouth is not a sob. It's not.

He needs to say it. It's suddenly so clear.

"Did you rape her?"

"I'm a reflection of your subconscious, kid. I can only tell you what you already know."

"Did you?" Tony demands desperately.

"What does it matter, you're just looking for someone to blame." Howard says.

Tony advances on him, presses the repulsor to his fucking stone face. As if him dying a second time would change anything.

The cold, granite face remains implacably serene. "I've been dead twenty five years, and you still blame me. Was I holding a gun to your head, boy? Did I put the liquor in your mouth?"

Tony stares at the soulless eyes, panting and horrified.

"See, I was right about you. You're too afraid to man up and take responsibility. You've gotta blame me, because otherwise it's all your fault, isn't it?"

The repulsor whines as Tony powers up the blast. His hand shines blue-white, and his teeth grind in terror and fury. And a big, blue hand wraps around his wrist.

Angrboda jerks him away and he loses his balance. Gravity pulls at him heavier, like the intensity of the moment had temporarily disabled it. They drag him out of the chamber, and it feels like stepping through a portal as he remembers where he is.

"What the fuck?" he pants, shakily finding his feet and brushing off Angrboda's hand.

The giant scrutinizes him, frowning. "You were visited."

"That's a word." Tony says, rubbing his face. The archway looms behind him, the stringed lines of paper prayers now a menacing reminder of what lay beyond.

Angrboda's brows are low and pinched. Eyes wide with surprise and concern. The look fills Tony with dread.

"This isn't normal, is it?"

"Only those drawing near to death receive direct guidance."

"Could have warned me."

Angrboda scowls. "When you wander alone, I cannot be responsible for your missteps."

They reach the circle of tablets, and the biters are all waiting there. The scent of burned herbs hangs on their clothes, along with an unusual air of serenity.

Irrationally, Tony wants to hug all of them. Wants to apologize for wrongs he can't specifically name. They've been under his wing for nine months, surely he's fucked up, even if he can't identify how.

Fenrir holds out a stick of incense, face stern. "Tony, you didn't burn an offering."

"Hurry, before you ancestors get angry!" Jori says, "Machem says the spirits follow you and dance on your head."

"I'm not, uh, religious." Tony protests, taking the stick and feeling ridiculously fragile under the combined attention of the brats.

"But the spirits." Jori insists, holding out his arms and doing an odd dance that involves a lot of stomping and growling.

"Look, I-" Tony starts.

Angrboda pinches the tip of the incense, and a small flame starts the end burning.

A memory claws at him, making his heart stutter. A night that feels like a lifetime ago. Prog rock warbling around the lab, and Loki curled up on the loveseat. Loose-limbed and happy, asking him to come to bed. And he kept working, kept trying to prove he was worthy, when all Loki wanted was him.

When he puts the stupid burning twig in the ground, he's not praying to his fucking garbage ancestors. His only thought is a wordless, helpless plea. A prayer to whatever cosmic puppeteer has it's hooks in him. Please, god, don't kill me until my family is safe. Let me keep a promise, just this once.

The uncaring ice floor does not offer any reassurance. It reflects a warped image of him. Beaten, gaunt, defeated. He forces a smile, hiding the ugliness behind a narcissist's bravado. The handsome devil in the mirror is stretched at least three inches taller, he has no right to look so dreary.

Back at the cottage, Loki doesn't seem much better off. He seems to have gone on an anxious cleaning spree, because all the windows are open and the place smells overpoweringly of lye. All surfaces in the house have been relentlessly scrubbed to a shine, and even the rafters are free of dust.

"Someone's been busy." Tony says approvingly, standing in the threshold.

Loki glances up from his place at the table, where he's polishing a tarnished silver water pitcher.

His brows lower, those sharp eyes taking in Tony's tired slouch. "You are troubled."

Tony isn't sure if he ought to bring up his unwelcome omen. Loki has more than enough weighing him down. But then his father's words ring back, and he supposes that's another excuse. Either he trusts Loki or he doesn't, he can't tell him one thing and do another.

"I found a psychedelic cave. According to Angry Buddha, it only works if you're about to die." he says, knowing that he should say it better.

To his credit, Loki doesn't freak out. He finishes buffing out the pitcher and places it on a high shelf in the kitchen. Without comment he slips on his high top boots and ties the laces. When he stands, he smooths out his shirt and favors Tony with a patient look.

"Well, show me to this oracle." he sighs, "We both know you'll go mad if you don't know."

He feels pinned, amazed anew by how well Loki knows him. When he fails to respond like a normal person, Loki huffs and slots a hand inside Tony's elbow.

"And do not start with your guilt complex. I wish to know as well."

"I…" Tony starts, and runs out of steam. "Okay."

They pass Angrboda and kids on the walk back to the cavern, and Tony tries to ignore the niggling suspicion that ze already knows.

The walk to the shrine doesn't take long enough. Tony isn't ready when they get there, and some childish part of him wants to drag Loki to a tablet and make him pray. Wants to sit there with him until the stick burns out and pretend they have a long future together.

At some point in their walk Loki's arm migrated to rest over Tony's shoulders, so he doesn't get much of a chance to stall. Loki spots the bouquet of paper prayers almost immediately and guides them unerringly toward it.

"You walked through this, sight unseen?" he says, like he's asking if Tony tried to put a Twinkie up his nose. Like it's inexcusably stupid.

"Well it's not like it has a stop sign on the front." Tony grumbles.

Loki plucks one of the cards from the line and holds it closer.

"Knowledge brings pain." he reads, pointing to the pictograms one at a time. "Pain brings enlightenment."

Tony scoffs. "Okay, great, I'll be sure to remember those three words in a language I don't speak."

Loki's arm slides off his shoulders, and he grips Tony's hand just long enough to squeeze.

"Are you scared?" Tony finds himself asking, his words echoing in the empty cavern. The cloying smell of incense burns his nostrils and the cold, icy walls feel imposing without the kids filling the space.

Loki exhales through his nose. Chews his cheek. "No... Yes."

"I can wait out here, if you'd rather."

"No. Stay." Loki says. Tony puts his hand on Loki's back, and lets him pull aside the strings.

The room shows no evidence of Tony's outburst. The statue stands dead center, surrounded by hanging banners and burnt offerings. Loki leads the way, and Tony keeps pace. Tries to be a steady presence at his right, even as he sweats through his socks. He's not sure what would be worse, seeing his father again or seeing whatever counts as an ancestor for Loki.

Neither of them move once they reach the edge of the incense minefield. The room fills with the sounds of their breathing and the quiet shuffling of fabric on their bodies. Nothing happens.

A tension he hadn't noticed until just now melts off Tony's body. He leans just enough for their arms to touch, and fucking rejoices. Loki's okay, whatever gets Tony's ticket doesn't get him.

"No." Loki says, grabbing Tony's wrist. "No, no-"

"Loki." Tony says, returning the hold with a hand on Loki's forearm. "Don't, this is good. Look at me, this is good."

"I can't-" Loki says.

The shining light of the crystals dims, the glowing energy congregating on the statue as it's face reforms. Tony's insides feel like lead as reality creeps in. Loki's grip on his wrist tightens as they both watch the horrifying spectacle of a face emerging from stone.

"Oh Christ, isn't it bad enough that you slept with a he-she? You have to bring it into my house and throw it in my face." Howard accuses, words slurring together.

"Let's go." Tony says, turning away and pulling at Loki's arm. Loki stares, surprised.

"Didn't know they make fairies that tall. Shit, Tony, you're the girl aren't you? What am I sayin', of course you are. You'd lift your shirt for anybody that called you special, wouldn't you?" Howard says, and Loki shivers.

Tony drags him out, face hot with shame. He hadn't anticipated Howard's response to Loki, hadn't thought that far. Once they're free of his father's shouted slurs, he shakes out his hands. Wipes the sweat off his forehead with his t-shirt, as if that will somehow rid him of how disgusting he feels.

The walk back to the cottage is as stiff as before. The only difference is now they have a concrete reason to be silent and morose.

The next several days are agonizing, and not because his ribs are knitting together fast enough for him to see and feel the change. The shrine's dark omen hangs over both them like a dark cloud, and nothing Tony says helps. Loki slingshots back and forth between hovering over Tony and avoiding him.

For his part, Tony can't summon the energy to be hurt. He's too busy trying to get his affairs in order without any of his files, records, or an internet connection. Loki refuses to discuss it. Every time Tony tries to broach the subject, he walks out of the room without so much as a flimsy excuse.

Anticipating death isn't as flashy the second time around. He already gave away the company, and his stock holdings were altered the week he ate the apple. There's no booze on this planet that a human liver can handle, and the only person he wants to have sex with is about as horny as a dead cat. So he sits on the rocking chair and contemplates the likelihood of reincarnation given the apparent existence of prophecies and destiny.

Time crawls with nothing to do, no reason to plan for the future, and no visible changes in the environment to mark its passage. The cavern is beautiful, but static. No weather penetrates, no light or dark hours break up the constant blue gloom. It's thematic for his mood, if nothing else.

It's only at night that Loki seems to actually listen, and even then it's because there's no couch to banish himself to. Each night, he drapes himself over Loki's curled up body and whispers into his neck how he wants Loki to live without him.

 _You will eat at least once a day. You will exercise twice a week. You will choose one friend and entrust them with your secrets. You will never hurt yourself because your body is precious to me. When you're ready you'll find someone else, and you'll remind yourself every time you see them that I want you to be loved. That my love does not exclude you from someone else's arms._ Every night Loki covers his face sobs _yes, Mister Stark, yes Mister Stark, I promise, Mister Stark_.

On the fifth day Loki hovers, and Tony is just glad for some company. The sprouts have spent the last several days with Angrboda, which is fine. It's their right. But it's been quiet, and he never did like the quiet.

He keeps himself busy scribbling notes to every person he ever pissed off. He only runs out of letters because he runs out of names. There's plenty more wrongs on his ledger, but he can't seem to attach a specific person to them.

After two days in the soggy cottage he drags the rocking chair out on the porch for a change of scenery and starts on his will. It's tricky, because he's not really sure he even has friends anymore. Also, he's not sure if Rogers prefers mountains or beaches. Creaking floor beams breaks his concentration as Loki steps outside and holds a ratty piece of linen in front of his face.

"Where did you get this?" he demands, and it takes a moment for Tony to identify the glorified rag as the blindfold.

A better version of him would make a joke about Loki's hints getting less subtle, but he's so depressed he can't even contemplate sex. Loki waves the blindfold in front of his face like a flag and Tony rolls his eyes.

"It will take me more than a sentence to explain. Are you sure you want to know?" he says moodily, because he's tired of Loki's hot and cold routine.

Loki drags a chair from the dining table and sits, arms crossed.

"On Sokovia another you saved my life. He ripped that off his clothes to stop me from blowing people up." Tony says.

"I have seen this fabric before." Loki says, tapping his heels on the legs of the chair.

"Well you were wearing it, so that's not exactly surprising." Tony says, chicken scratching a shitty outline of the Malibu house on a rumpled parchment. At least he gets the satisfaction of making Fury read his last will off a scroll like a Greek tragedy.

Loki pulls the scroll out of Tony's grasp and very nearly knocks the inkwell off the wood plank he's been using as a lap desk.

"Hey, what gives?"

"It was worn by a Midgardian wizard named Doctor Strange." Loki says, dropping the scroll on the ground and frowning. "When Thor brought me to Earth, Strange made it clear that he would not tolerate hijinks on his planet."

"So why would the other you go to Hogwarts?" Tony asks.

Loki wrings his hands and tips his chair up on the back legs. "I presume, since this other me came to your aid, the he had some means of foreseeing your death."

"He had the time stone." Tony admits, tapping the fountain pen on the plank. "Wait, what if the other you joined the wizard cult-"

"-to steal the time stone and undo your death." Loki says, the front legs of his chair thudding on the porch as his legs go slack.

Loki jumps to his feet, movements jerky as he rushes inside and returns with socks and boots.

"Loki, no. We're not robbing a time wizard." Tony says, startled.

"Heavens no, I would never put you in danger in your current state." Loki says, shoving his feet into socks and nearly snapping the laces on his boots in his haste. "Which is why I shall go alone."

"Without your magic?" Tony says, hurrying to set his lap desk aside.

"I have my stone-" Loki replies, his eyes widening as he gets an idea. "Perhaps we can trade."

Loki strides into the cottage with the kind of confident rashness that makes Tony nervous. When he walks inside Loki's opening a wardrobe in one of the side rooms, and pulling armor pieces off a rack within. It's not a style Tony has seen before. Interwoven silver plates lay over a black tunic lined with scale mail.

"Loki, be reasonable."

"I am!" he spits, turning on Tony with the taking-over-your-planet look he hasn't seen in a long, long time. He steps into Tony's space and looks down at him from his full height. Tony flinches, can't stop himself when his lover is looming and holding back obvious terror.

Loki shrugs into a heavy, padded tunic and jerks the ties into hasty knots. "I will not sit idle while I have time left to save you."

Tony shakes his head, resigned. Unable to tell Loki no again.

He makes him eat a damn power bar before he goes, just so he can feel like he did something. Loki smiles at him for the first time in days, and wraps a hand around the back of his neck.

"The universe can burn, so long as I have you." he swears, and that's exactly what Tony is afraid of.

"Be clever. Come back safe." he says instead, "I don't want to die alone."

"You shall not die at all." Loki says sharply, and the mist on Tony's hand feels like liquid fear.

As it turns out, Tony was being unnecessarily dramatic. Loki returns less than ten minutes later with ash on his nose and a surly scowl dragging his eyebrows into a dark line.

"The wizard has been taken. The stone is lost." he seethes, pacing an angry circle around the dining table. "Idiot mortals, can they not hold a single treasure where it is meant to be?"

"It's okay, Lokes, it's okay. You tried." Tony says wearily, massaging his temples.

"It is not." Loki chokes, stopping suddenly enough that his cape billows around his legs.

"Sit down." Tony says in a firm voice, "You're gonna make a new crawl space if you keep stomping like that."

Loki sits. He slumps forward. His shoulders slump.

When he starts sniffling Tony pulls his head into his lap and murmurs into his hair. _You will be okay without me. You will find happiness again. You will have your children beside you. You will get help when you can't do it yourself. You will cry when you need to, and you will not feel ashamed. You will think one good thing about yourself every single day. You will prank baristas at coffee shops and flirt with them if they're cute. You will tell your critics to go fuck themselves, and you will not try to bring me back. Do you hear me? You will not. You will not._

The next morning Loki rushes out the door mumbling about the Soul Stone, and Tony just rolls over in bed. He lays there in a fog and imagines the sun rising and shining through the windows, because nothing ever changes here. He doesn't notice the brats come in until they're jumping on top of him, and even then he can't seem to concentrate on what they're saying.

Hela thrusts a teacup in his face after a bit, and the spiced herbal scent makes his eyes burn. He sips, and Hela stares at him blankly.

"Sorry, Slayer. I'm not much fun today." he says.

Hela picks at her nails. "I will watch him. When you are gone."

Tony sighs, and his breath ripples the surface of his tea. He can't quite make himself say thanks.

Eventually he crawls out of bed purely because he can't stand to lay on his half healed ribs any longer. He pulls on a fresh pair of pants and sits by the fire. There's a rug just by the fire that's some kind of animal skin, furry and with the tusked head still attached. Good thing PETA doesn't have an office on Jotunheim, they'd have their work cut out for them.

Jori's sitting on his knees on the rug, a box of antiquated toys upended to his right. Tony watches him walk the little wood soldiers and horses around the fuzzy landscape, and tries to remember a time when he played with the kid. He's a bit stunned when he comes up empty handed. Usually he just watched or told him to go bother Fenrir.

The little biter abandons whatever story he's working through after a bit and rummages around in the box. He pulls out a rag doll by the foot, and squints at it. Frankly, Tony wants to toss it in the fire. The thing is straight out of a grindhouse horror film, and he knows better than to mess around with an antique rag doll found in an abandoned witch house. Jori's perplexed expression stops him.

The kid turns it around and studies its smiling button face.

"What is this?" Jori asks, holding the nightmare toy at arm's length. Tony scratches his beard, unsure how exactly to answer. It's not like there were any dolls in his childhood. Well, none that weren't made of plastic and equipped with mini missiles. Come to think of it, there aren't any in Stark Tower either.

"That's a doll, Champ." Tony says, "It's like an imaginary friend."

"Why's it's head so big?"

"It's a baby. Babies have big heads." Tony shrugs, growing uneasy as Jori continues to hold the thing upside down by the ankle. He shuffles off the hearth and sits beside him. "Have you not seen a baby before?"

Jori blinks at him.

"Ah jeez, okay." Tony says, massaging the back of his neck. Taking the doll from Jori, he holds it in his arms and mimes rocking it back and forth. "Babies are like…" _freshly coded A.I.s_ "..puppies. You remember that movie we watched with the puppies?"

"Uh huh." Jori nods. "The big man gave them milk!"

"Yeah that's right. Babies are the same. They can't take care of themselves. You have to feed them, and hold them. And eventually they grow into little monsters like you."

"I was that small?" Jori asks, pointing at the little doll.

"Probably?" Tony says, "I dunno. Here, you try."

He passes the rag doll back, and Jori paws it into an awkward hold. It looks like the kid's about to run a football to the endzone. Tony's chest tightens, and he shifts the doll around until it' head is on Jori's elbow. Jori goes on like that for a while, grabbing a rag from the kitchen to use as a blanket and picking out a cylindrical block to use as a bottle.

Then without warning, Jori puts the doll down and climbs in Tony's lap.

"What's up, buddy?"

"I wish I was a baby." Jori mumbles.

Tony hesitates. "You sure? Babies don't get TV time. They don't eat ice cream or play tag or do coloring books."

"I hate growing up." Jori whines. "When I get bigger we move. I don't wanna move, I wanna go home."

An irrational urge to console sweeps in, and it kills Tony that he can't say anything. He can't promise to be there.

Jori is way too big to fit in Tony's arms. His legs hang over his elbow, and his little shoulder digs into Tony's reactor scar.

"You can't stop time, kid." Tony says.

Jori wraps a hand around the hem of Tony's shirt and he can't tear himself away. Leaving will not be Jori's last memory of him.

He lets the kid lay there as long as he wants. When the thoughts get too loud, Tony rocks him in his lap. Soon the rocking isn't enough so he starts humming. And if the only song he can think of that's remotely lullaby-ish is Bohemian Rhapsody, well, Jori doesn't know any better.

Once the baby adder gets his fill of age-regression, Tony convinces him to make Fenris a mud pie and secures himself a few minutes of free time. As easy as it would be to continue nose diving, he's not a tortured genius for nothing.

His dad's words haunt him, and a deep seated anger boils up and doesn't go away. After declaring Hela a temporary grown up, he put on his shades and stalks to the shine in a fugue.

Howard's vacant stone eyes don't give Tony the anchor he expects. His buzzing thoughts dissipate like smoke now that he's ready to say them. Unlike the previous visits, his dad is silent. Tony sits cross-legged, gripping his knees.

"Did you love me?" he asks.

The statue regards him, the room as quiet as a tomb.

"Did you?" Tony demands, voice cracking.

The statue blinks very slowly, as though the question has many variables. It doesn't, it's a very simple question. Yes or no. Howard shakes his head.

"I cared about you, but I was not capable of love."

Tony crosses his arms. Breathes in moist air. When he exhales all he feels is relief. After all these years, finally there's closure. Bare truth to rewrite the facts of his life with.

"My mistakes were my own fault." he murmurs.

"As were mine." the statue says. His voice is gentler, as if Tony's acceptance smooths the rough edges.

"There was nothing wrong with me." Tony says, half expecting the statue to spit out some trite magic 8-ball crap. _Outlook hazy, try again._ His dad clasps his hands and doesn't respond. Tony mirrors the pose.

"And no matter how many bottles you threw at me, or how many names you called me, I still like dick. How about that, pops?"

The profanity feels good, like a double shot of teenage rebellion. He wants more, and the statue makes no move to interrupt, so he ups the ante.

"In fact, the next time I see Loki you know what I'm gonna do?" Tony sneers, leaning into Howard's face, "I'm gonna grease myself up like the queer pansy whore you were so afraid I would be, and I'm gonna ride his fat alien cock in your honor."

The statue observes him placidly, and its non-reaction punctures his bitterness. Robs him of the satisfaction he expects to feel. He slouches, scratching at the seam of his pants.

"I don't think I can forgive you." Tony admits.

"Do you think I deserve forgiveness?" Howard asks.

"I think you were a broken person." Tony says.

"But do I deserve forgiveness?"

"If you don't, then I don't either. I did even worse things than you."

"Do I deserve forgiveness?" Howard repeats.

"No." Tony admits.

Water drips from the rippled ceiling and splashes into puddles. The air feels stale in his lungs.

"Then you do not need to forgive me." Howard says, and when Tony looks up the statue is just a statue. The face is blank, and its arms are outstretched as if welcoming the universe in.

Tony feels hollow. Exhausted, but also peaceful. He rubs at his nose, and sniffs. He's not crying damn it, it's sweat. Stress sweat.


	19. Chapter 19

Clarity is the devil's drug. It hits Tony's system like caffeine and he walks out of the cave cauterized. Loki's gift coat covers him like armor, and it's with a certain vigor that he slows to a stop in the main chamber.

"Loki." he calls, his voice echoing. The limits of the magic-name phenomenon are unclear. And Loki's magic is having an identity crisis, so that probably gets in the way too. It's worth a shot.

"Accio Loki."

Nothing.

"Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki, my dearest darling jackass, the machine to my oil, the pop to my corn-"

The aether senses an energy behind him. Instead of pulsing out it shrivels up and hides. That was faster than he expected. Tony grins, turning.

"You arse, I thought you were in trouble." Loki growls.

He stalks toward Tony wearing a put out expression that almost obscures his elevated pulse.

"In my defense, I didn't think it would work." he says softly, the echo of the room suddenly abrasive. Too loud. Their connection lives in the quiet spaces between catastrophic downpours. It feels wrong to have private words ringing.

"Well, bully for you. I was in the middle of something."

There's a manila envelope in his hand.

"Keeping up correspondence?"

"Of a sort." Loki huffs, flipping the package open and dumping the contents in his hand.

It's a stack of ID cards, and birth certificates. Social security numbers and passports with close cropped photos of the godlings.

"No way." Tony says, taking the stack from Loki and squinting at the small print.

"Fury." Loki says by way of explanation. "Unfortunately he did not have much information to offer. Only this-"

He slips a folded stack of paper from the bottom of the pile. It's a string of complex calculations and trajectories converted into a flight path. Tony pages through the stack, following the logic of the arithmetic.

"Whatever crack mind they got to do this forgot to factor in gravity."

"The craft is in space. It is the Titan's ship."

Tony checks again. Turns the page upside down. "He already has Strange."

"And Vision. The tower was attacked yesterday night. Hence the mathematics. Courtesy of NASA."

Shit, three stones for Thanos. They're running out of time.

"So the only possible objective is-"

"The Soul Stone." Loki nods. "I estimate the destination to be Helgentar."

"Time to make a move, then. They didn't impound our ship, did they?"

Loki returns the paperwork to the envelope and seals it. He flips the packet nervously between his hands.

"The tower is occupied." he hedges.

"But they haven't moved our stuff?"

"We have my stone." Loki protests, envelope flipping, flipping, flipping.

Tony grabs the damn thing and slips it under his arm. It's driving him nuts. He vividly remembers being stuck in a blizzard while Loki and Hela wrecked the Malibu house.

"We don't know what we're getting into. We need a ship."

Loki picks at his itchy skin and sighs. Now that he looks closer, he sees a tired resignation that wasn't there yesterday. Tony runs his thumb over his lines, and Loki brushes him off.

"What about Hela?" Tony asks.

"She-"

"Ze." Tony corrects.

"How many blasted pronouns does one language need?"

"As many as there are kinds of people." Tony says, trying to ignore the irony.

Loki tucks a hair behind his ear, sighing. " _They_ made their wishes clear. I would be a fool to deny _them_."

"Look, I'm trying to help. Don't shoot the messenger."

He makes sure his hand doesn't touch skin when he sets it on Loki's lower back. Taking a step toward the exit, he only fully relaxes when Loki follows.

"So what is the plan?" Hela asks, morphing hir clothing into a black and green bodysuit Tony finds very age inappropriate.

They're huddled on the bean bags in Angry Buddha's house, tolerating one more obligatory round of spice tea. He was willing to skip it, but apparently that's illegal in these parts.

Hela taps hir nails on hir carved granite cup. Truth is, he and Loki don't really do plans anymore. When they change every five minutes, they sort of become something else. Intuition? Improvisation? Something like that.

He shrugs, laying out the vague idea that seemed very well thought out in the shrine. "The raisin has power, time, and mind. If we get the soul stone, it's a three versus three."

"There are worse odds." Loki says, the leather of his green and silver armor squeaking against the hide seat.

"And what if we fail?" Hela asks.

Loki sighs. "I'm not sure we're allowed to."

"We know we can't overpower him." Tony says, because they might as well admit it. A head on fight is a no-win scenario. He looks to Loki. Clever ideas are supposed to be his thing.

Loki shakes his head. "Unless he is secretly weak to mistletoe, I have no techniques for killing immortals."

"Would he freeze in space?" Tony asks.

"I wouldn't." Loki quips.

"Disintegration?" Hela says.

"The power stone could block it." Loki replies, "And time could reverse it."

"Meteor?"

"Too slow."

"Ragnarok?" Hela says.

Tony opens his mouth automatically to refute hir... and shuts it. Glances are exchanged, everyone waiting for someone to say no. And nobody does.

"Possible." Loki finally says, "Very possible."

Hela's face lights up, hir hands gesticulating. "All we would have to do is trap him on Asgard. Surely even he could not survive Surtur's blade?"

"It's far from a guarantee-" Tony says.

"His sword derives power from the souls he has slain. Many gods fell to him in the time of Bor." Loki says, a tiny spark of hope igniting in his eyes.

Tony feels himself latch onto that look, even as he's trying desperately not to give in to his own revived optimism. Nothing hurts like losing hope after you've just got it back.

"It is true, I have seen it." Hela says, energetic and bright.

Loki shoots hir a disturbed look and ze dismisses it with a roll of hir eyes.

"I was collecting the soul. But it got sucked in the blade. Lady Death was furious-"

"Hold up, we're getting ahead of ourselves. What about the soul stone?" Tony asks.

"What does it do? Is it like one of yours?" Hela asks.

"Safe to say it has something to do with souls." Tony shrugs, "And it depends on the user. My stone does way more for me than it did for the dark elf."

"I already have power over souls." Hela says, frowning thoughtfully.

"More importantly-" Loki interrupts, looking between them, "Would Surtur's blade hold any power if the Titan could release the souls?"

Hela drinks deeply and blows out a harsh breath. "It would be no more powerful than a butter knife."

Tony nods, pushing himself up and taking Hela's empty mug to the kitchen.

He puts both cups in the wash basin and turns to where Angrboða is slicing vegetables on the other side of the kitchen worktop.

"Hear that, Big Easy? Looks like we're out of your hair."

The not-so gentle giant glances over their shoulder, not pausing in the cutting.

"We'll need you to look after the little bits. Until we get back."

Angrboða sets the knife on the slate counter. They turn around, wiping their hands on a jute cloth and throwing it over their shoulder. They are so damn composed, all the time. It bugs him.

"Did you find your truth?" they ask, and fuck it but he knows exactly what they mean. He wipes at his nose, because it runs constantly on this planet.

"For what good it does, yeah."

Angrboða nods. "Do not lose sight. Our truths lead us on the proper paths."

"You know, I really wish I didn't understand you."

"I will pray for your return."

That surprises Tony, but he doesn't have time to do anything about it. The little biters pad in from the other side of the donut house, Fen's hair sticking up and Jori rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Tony, Tony, I had a dream." Jori says, yawning.

"Who cares? You dream all the time." Fen grumbles.

"But this one was a good dream." Jori says, elbowing Fen. "It was raining candy and Big Bird wanted to dance with me."

"Was he a good dancer?" Tony asks, squatting down. He's glad they're subdued from nap time. Breaking the news is less liable to instigate a rebellion.

"The best." Jori says sincerely, hands on his hips. Tony pivots to Fen.

"And you? Got any food related weather?"

Fen shrugs, itching his butt.

"Snow." he says, which means a nightmare. The puppy was chained up in a cave on top of a mountain. Jotunheim probably isn't the best place for him.

"Did you remember anything this time?"

Fen crosses his arms, and glances at his machem like he's embarrassed. Based on their perturbed expression he's got a good reason to be. Something tells Tony tender emotions aren't welcome here.

"Chains." he says.

Tony nods, fixing Fen's messy hair. "I have those dreams too. How did it end?"

"Stayed in there, forever."

Standing up for moment, Tony snags a couple slices of food from the counter. He holds one out to each of the boys and ignores Angrboða's mutinous frown.

"Your dad and I came, in real life. You know he and your mechem will always come and find you."

Fen looks doubtfully at Angrboða, and Tony winces. Obviously, they hadn't. Still.

"They will. And me too, if I can." Tony says. "Promise."

"Pinky promise?" Jori asks.

Fen glares at him. "Shut up, Jori."

Tony gives Fen _the look_ , and he mumbles an apology. Chews on his veggie stick.

Tony holds out his pinky anyway. It beats the old spit shake by a mile. Fen wraps his little finger around Tony's.

"Pinky promise." Tony says, and Fen rubs his face.

"You're leaving again aren't you?" he asks. Too smart, all Loki's kids are too smart.

"I won't lie, it's bad this time. But we're going to do whatever it takes to get back. You're gonna stay here, and we'll be back before you know it."

"If you don't I'll fart on Hela until she gets your soul and brings it back." Fenrir threatens.

"That's the spirit. Alright, bring it in." Tony says, pulling them both in and patting their backs.

When he stands up, Loki and Hela are hovering behind him. With some hand waving, he gets them both to repeat the process. It's kind of poetic. His dad spent years forcing him to be an unfeeling zombie, and here he is pressuring his emotionally stunted brats to feel things.

He doesn't have any desire to touch Angrboða, but the cycle of goodbyes leaves them both standing awkwardly to the side.

When they reach to shake, he grabs their forearm and weeds out any judgmental feelings on the off chance they leak through. Angrboða's fingers completely circle his elbow, and even if it was the polite thing to do it gives him the creeps.

"They're great kids. You should be proud." he says, because he heard it on the Today Show once and it sounded pretty slick.

"You coddle them."

Tony shrugs. "It's a gift."

"Let's not waste time." Loki sighs, pulling his cape from a hook on the wall. "The sooner we leave the sooner we may return."

Tony hopes so. He really, really does.

The Arizona base is heavily defended, as expected. The three of them step through a portal to the hangar and a hundred personnel pull out their weapons.

"Anybody who wants a paycheck better put their bazookas down." Tony says, his red and gold suit materializing around his raised arms.

Sixty or so lower their weapons.

Great, some overachieving middle manager must be recruiting employees with principles.

"We may want to relocate." Loki says mildly, summoning a portal at their feet. The three of them land in the atmo shuttle, mostly upright. Loki and Hela do anyway, because it wouldn't be his life if he didn't fall on his ass.

"Remember the plan, Slayer?" Tony asks, getting up.

"Move the crane. Drop the ship on the rocket. Activate the launch sequence." Hela recites. A glamour traveling up hir legs and over hir torso, until ze's a perfect replica of a research assistant. Complete with name tag. Now that's talent.

"Gold star. And Loki-"

Loki wrinkles his nose. "Stay on the ship. I know."

He stomps through the door to the cockpit, and Tony chooses to ignore the attitude. There are bigger fish outside, highly trained ones with assault rifles.

Hela approaches the airlock ramp and slams the button to open it. He slides his vizor down and darkness blocks everything except a wireframe outline of the ship's walls. Stepping behind Hela, he summons his arrays and wraps an arm around hir neck.

The ramp crashes down. Show time.

He holds an array to Hela's head and struts out of the shuttle like a fighter entering the ring. Guns cock in every direction and he holds the aether by the proverbial neck. This is a spectacle. A diversion. Nobody needs to get hurt.

Men and women yell, and an officer on a loudspeaker commands him to release his hostage. Hela shrieks, giving the performance of a lifetime as his HUD informs him of at least two hundred hostiles. He projects his voice from the suit's speakers.

"Everybody be cool. I'm just picking up my stuff, and then I'll be on my way."

Feet hammer on concrete, people running away and security running to.

"Let her go, Stark." a man calls.

"Don't shoot!" Hela cries, kicking and struggling against a hold that's not actually tight. "Please, I have children."

"Stay where you are, and nobody gets hurt." Tony says in his best villain voice. He hopes he doesn't over do it. Is there such thing as overdoing an evil monologue?

Something shifts in the room, bodies moving and making the air pressure change.

An accented voice carries over the din. "Do you know how it feels to be used, Tony Stark?"

Hazy shapes resolve into a petite female form, approaching with her hands in a come hither motion. Wanda Maximov. This day gets better and better.

"More than you know, Red." Tony says, making his array glow like it's powering up.

"You are a menace to the world. I will make you pay for the lives you took."

Lives. Plural. Tony's glad for his face plate. He can't hold character. Hela screams in his arms, and there's no denying it any longer. He's a bad guy now. Blood on his hands and a dollar sign on his head.

The Scarlet Bitch gathers power, her fingers plucking through reality in a way he recognizes. Axiomatic voids, son of a bitch.

Wanda releases the bolt, and Tony recreates the red translucent shield around his hand. Primal force blows him and Hela back several inches, but doesn't pass through.

"Good luck." he whispers, shoving Hela aside. Taking off, he spins and slams a boot into Wanda's torso. She collides with a glass partition, rolling to land on her feet with an arm holding her chest.

Landing in a crouch, he adjusts his visor to show targets in melee range. There's about a dozen, all charging at once. By the time he's got them down, Wanda's preparing another attack.

The power behind her strikes makes his hair stand up. Wild, untamed magic beats against his shield, shaking his arm and testing his strength. Then his feet leave the ground. Wanda has telekinesis. Not good. He hits the back wall like a freight train, but it's not his first rodeo.

"Altitude flaps." he grunts, the back panels of his suit pushing him out of the hole. His repulsors kick on, and he aims for a knockout punch.

Wanda side steps, a tendril of ruby mindfuckery extending toward his head. The aether lashes out, and she crashes hard into a concrete beam.

Her vitals hover on his display. Unconscious. Minor injuries.

"FRIDAY, you there babe?" he shouts, powering up his thrusters. Guards shuffle into a circle around him.

A pleasant Irish accent answers from the P.A. system. "At your service, boss."

"Gimme a fast beat."

The beginning chords of an eighties rock anthem thump through the speakers, and Tony cracks his neck. Eyes the crowd as he puts his fists up in a boxing stance.

"Good thing you guys get dental coverage." he says, and the guards rush him in a blur of punches and kicks. Music blasts through his ears, his body moving in sync and falling into the rhythm of a good fight.

A loud crashing sounds behind him, and the opponents stop. A repetitive beeping noise announces the lowering of the shuttle. A good chunk of the goon squad rushes toward the crane and Tony fires an off target blast to reclaim their attention. Another bout of unexceptional fighting, and then the floor gets pretty crowded. Nobody's dead, but there are definitely some bruised egos.

The last of the forces retreat after the second round. Hela skids out of an emergency exit tailed by twelve scientists, and the run back to the shuttle is pure fun. It's probably bad for him to enjoy this, but the Cave of Wonders straightened a few things out. He's beyond saving, morally and otherwise. There's no reason not to get some kicks while he can.

They pass by centrifuges and ballistics labs, and emerge back in the aircraft hangar. Wanda's still unconscious. Stopping at her side, he lifts his visor.

Hela looks over hir shoulder, running past. "The countdown has started. Hurry."

Tony waves her on, distracted by the dark circles under Wanda's eyes.

"FRIDAY, send a request to Pepper. Corporate email, addressed from me. Have her set up a foundation for Sokovian Relief under a shell company. No mention of me or Stark anything."

"How much funding should I allocate?"

"I dunno, proportional to the losses. You can do the math."

"Two minutes." Hela calls.

"Done, boss." FRIDAY says.

"Pleasure working with you, doll." Tony says.

"You are a sap." Hela replies, jumping on his back when he takes flight. They soar to the shuttle at the top of the rocket, and the hangar ceiling opens just as he drops in the shuttle's airlock.

"Took you long enough." Loki drawls.

Tony dismisses the suit and ruffles Loki's hair. "I'm happy to see you too."

"You were rather brutal with the enhanced girl."

Tony meets Loki's eye, surprised to see a look of concern. Moral judgement from Loki is a new one. He sits in the co-pilot's seat and buckles the harness.

"If they call me a villain I might as well act like one."

"That is a very slippery slope."

Tony shrugs. Karma can hardly bite him in the span of a few days. Might as well go out with a bang. He doesn't say it out loud though. Loki's better off without the reminder.

Busying himself with final checks, he programs the trajectory and slouches as much as he can in a bucket seat.

The rocket ignites, and for the next ten minutes all he can think is _gee, that's a lot of gravity._

The Helgentar system got the name from a nearby garbage dump.

A refuse ship must have malfunctioned or something, because space junk floats aimlessly around like an asteroid field of scrap metal and food wrappers.

They're headed for a moon called Hel, no relation. According to the locals Helgentar was named from the old phrase meaning litter-infested shithole. Which would make Hel either 'litter' or 'shithole' depending on the sentence structure. If Loki pilots them through one more loop, Tony's going to add some organic matter to the littery shithole regardless of the name.

Debris resembling a dismantled escape pod misses them by inches. Cursing, he checks the navigation displays. The three dimensional map has about a million dots, all flying in unpredictable directions.

"I think we should turn around." he yells over the roar of engines and the incessant wailing of alarms. The shuttle is not happy about this situation either. It was designed for short treks in and out of orbit, not this ridiculous Star Wars crap. He has no interest in dying by light-speed garbage, thank you very much.

"We have to be thorough." Loki says, wrenching the control sticks and sending them into a corkscrew.

"Can't you teleport us?"

Hela whips off the communications headset and slaps the back of Loki's seat repeatedly.

"Dad, I hear something. There's another ship-"

"Was that a toilet seat? I swear to god if I die with a crapper around my neck-"

"One person at a time, if you please." Loki snaps, lurching the craft around a cube of compacted steel.

"Dad, I think-" Hela says at the same time Tony says, "The stone, Loki, use your fucking-"

"If I move us from space to a pressurized environment our shuttle will collapse." Loki shouts, "I am starting to doubt the validity of your doctorates, Stark."

"Will either of you fucking listen to me?" Hela yells, slamming hir hand on the communication console.

The alarms quiet as the device overrides the speakers. Sudden, jarring silence invades the cockpit and then—chittering, clicking, insect-like screeching. Chitauri.

"Language." Tony mumbles under his breath, his skin crawling at the haunting noise.

"Give me a coordinate." Loki says, pulling the controls back to center and leveling out their path.

"Where's the signal coming from?" Tony asks, zooming out on his map.

"I don't know, it's just noise." Hela says, eyes darting around hir work space.

"Sound is a waveform. It has a direction." Tony says, leaning over hir shoulder and twisting some dials. The messy wave on Hela's station becomes more distinct, and he sends the reading to his own console. Plotting the line on his map, he follows its path until it collides with a planet.

"Vormir?" he reads, squinting at the fuzzy hologram. Weird name. He shoots the coordinates to Loki's station, and the computer projects them on the shuttle's windshield.

"Take the helm." Loki says, dropping the controls and digging under his collar for the locket. The craft lurches, and Tony scrambles to grab the joysticks before they crash. A few tense seconds of swerves and dives buys Loki the time he needs, and a portal appears in front of them.

They come out the other side to a real life game of Gallaga. A sprawling armada orbits a large, orange planet with a moon eclipsing a nearby star. Most of the ships are small fighters, aligned in organized clusters and awaiting deployment. The mothership is unmistakable, rows of transparent tubes wrapping around a gargantuan helix shaped hull. Even at this distance Tony can see tiny figures rushing up and down the tubes.

A section of the mothership breaks off with a flare of propulsion jets. It's equipped with heat resistant panels that mark it as a craft designed to make landfall. Tony throws the switch for stealth mode, and hopes like hell they haven't been spotted.

Hela presses the headphones back on hir ears and listens, eyes unfocused as ze dials hir attention. Fingernails tapping on the console, Tony wills the goosebumps on his arms to go away.

Loki steers them around, falling into orbit on the back side of the planet. The whole time Hela sits perfectly still, intent. With a sigh, ze meets Tony's gaze and shakes hir head.

"I don't think we were detected."

Loki queues up the landing sequence, and turns on the fasten seat belt sign with a quirk of his lips. Tony sighs, and can't help the fondness that slips onto his face. It's always fun and games with Loki.

The heat of the atmosphere burning over the windshield looks like a dying star, and Tony tries not to project any symbolism onto that.

Touching down on the planet's surface, he's struck by the barren wastes.

They hide the ship in the shadow of a cliff, just out of sight near the base of two black spires. The monument caught Tony's eye from the air, and something about it called to him. Pointing through the sandblasted windshield, he told Loki to park there.

Remnants of civilization line the crumbling staircases. Cracked spires and broken clay pots tell a story of lost life, the city turned into a cemetery. Wind howls through the ruins, and when he sets foot on the soil he feels like he's going to sink in.

Loki and Hela drop anchor, and Tony just stands there in awe. The universe is vast, so phenomenally big. He remembers eating cereal on the kitchen cabinets at ten years old, watching TV and seeing the first photographs of Saturn from the Voyager satellite. _The planet has rings,_ the morning show hosts said with delight, _Look at that, you can see the rings._

Billions of light years farther than Saturn, he is standing on a planet whose sole light source is a permanent eclipse. The sheer mathematical improbability of that, the gravitational balance, it roots him to the spot. For once he's not faking humility as he stands at the edge of everything and gazes on stars he was never meant to sees. It's profound, and then it's over.

A large craft plummets through the atmosphere, flame bright on its descent.

"Look." Hela says, pointing.

Loki cranes his neck, tying down the last of the anchors. "Quickly, then."

The trek is not long. Worn avenues cross the once developed planet, and boulders provide cover from the long sight lines. He alters the suit into a sleeker design, better suited to stealth and speed. If they stumble into a head-on confrontation they've lost anyway, so he might as well adapt.

Low voices alert them to their target's position and they duck under a nearby rock, listening.

Thanos isn't alone. A dark cloaked figure leads him along a path, and he drags a green-skinned woman behind him. She doesn't look happy to be there.

"Who's she?" Tony whispers, leaning into Loki's side for the simple reassurance of it. Loki shakes his head.

"There are two daughters. Gamora and Nebula. I don't know how they look."

The cloaked figure draws ahead of his guests."What you seek lies in front of you. As does what you fear."

"What is this?" Ga-Nebula asks, looking up at the mirrored spires.

"The price." the wraith replies. "Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say it has a certain wisdom. The stone demands a sacrifice."

Just what he was afraid of—Indiana Jones bullshit. A sacrifice, a soul. Loki's face is a study in blankness, and they have a twenty minute argument silently in two seconds. He grabs his wrist in an echo of their time in the cave.

Loki sets his jaw. "I will not-"

"We're out of time for denial."

"No." Loki hisses, and Tony could handle it if his eyes weren't glassy. If he weren't blinking twice as fast. Hela's watching them from hir place across the path, and he can't deal with it all at once. He needs more time, why the hell is there never enough time?

"Get out your daggers." he grunts, hitting Loki in the side when he doesn't. "Do I have to order you? Get out your daggers."

A woman's shout interrupts their near silent argument. Ga-Nebula struggles, hitting Thanos where he holds her at the wrist. He drags her toward the edge, thumping footsteps beating a path along the carved ground. Hela leaps out of cover, and a long black sword manifests in hir hand.

They can't fight this, they agreed. Tony motions for Hela to stop, and hir face only becomes more determined. He runs to stand in hir way, but he isn't fast enough. The blade leaves hir hand like a guillotine falling, and the woman's yelling morphs into a pained cry.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Tony asks, and Hela readies a second blade.

"If he kills her, the stone is lost." ze says, spinning to throw the sword with deadly accuracy. Thanos turns, shocked, and shoots a wild shot of purple energy behind him.

The sudden attack doesn't stop Thanos' march, if anything he hurries faster toward the edge. Loki rounds the other side of the spire and adds a trio of his own daggers to the onslaught. Apparently Tony's outvoted.

Gritting his teeth, he slides his face plate down and joins the fray. Thanos stands mere feet from the ledge, and Tony realizes with blistering certainty that they are facing their no-win scenario.

The gutted woman falls over the ledge with a heart-stopping scream. Her body lands with the snap of breaking bones, and when Thanos turns an amber stone shines in his open palm. The titan's brow dips, eyes wet and gleaming in genuine grief, and it's a special torture that Tony's last thought is this:

Thanos, tyrannical space emperor, killer of millions, self-appointed dark messiah, loves his kid more than Howard loved him.

The stone's power flares, and Tony closes his eyes, doesn't want to see Loki's face twist like it did on Sokovia. Can't bear to see him scream with all his teeth and abandon the mission to catch his corpse. So he closes his eyes and hopes he did enough, cared enough, chose the right words.

A body hits the ground. Not his.

Shocked back to awareness, he sees a dark form crumpled in the dirt. Black hair and blue skin. Loki.

Fog fills Tony's head. He stumbles, uncomprehending, toward his lover's body. There's a ringing in his ears like a broken radio. Piercing, shrieking static. Once, a million years ago at three in the morning, he got a ringing in his ear down in the workshop. JARVIS said it was a symptom of hearing loss, that a part if his eardrum was dying. _Listen, sir, this may be the last time you hear this frequency._ He didn't, of course. He was stupid then.

Now, a pitch chimes beneath the numbness as he runs. The last note of a melody Loki plucked on his heart. Sound is a waveform, it always has a direction. His feet follow it like divination. Even with his mind frozen in a bubble of shock, his legs take him on a path as unerring and straight as the Jotun lines. Loki's mouth is slack, and that's not right. It's meant for cut-glass grins and bone-deep insults, for biting and pouting and kissing Tony like nobody else.

Distantly he recognizes the clash of swords, but he has eyes only for Loki. Checking for a pulse is instinct, fingers pressed into newly healed skin. He waits, expecting to feel nothing, but a warm breath rustles the hair on his forearm. A faint rhythm jumps under his finger, and he stares into eyes as vacant and lifeless as marbles. Brain dead.

Alive, but not. Soulless.

His attention snaps outward with jarring speed when Hela yelps. Thanos has hir by the throat, raising up and up, and all Tony sees is the gauntlet. The big, gaudy power grab with four stones on it. This is the showdown he's been waiting for, and he knows he can't win. More importantly—and isn't it finally the truth, that this matters more to him than the rest of the universe—Loki's spirit is in the soul stone. He's not gone yet.

So while Thanos ignores Tony in favor of choking Hela, he opens himself to the aether. Despite limitless possibilities, and regardless of potentially ruinous consequences, he imagines a simple change. A universe where the stone in Loki's locket is the soul stone.

The aether makes it so.

"Hela, run." he orders, hoisting Loki up. He's always heavy, but this one pulls at his heart as much as his muscles. He takes flight.

Transformation creeps up Hela feet first. A green snake slips through Thanos' fingers, and turns into a Jotun dodge rolling away. Ze leaps over the cliff face, hair flying up in a weightless moment while ze changes again. A beat of the great falcon's wings stirs up a cloud of dust, and ze dives for the shuttle.

They land in a flurry of motion, and Tony cuts the anchors with a blade from Loki's belt. Destinations flick through his mind, none of them safe. How can they run from the Space Stone? No locale is remote enough.

Dragging Loki up the ramp and through the kitchenette, he does the backward two-step through the bedroom hatch and chokes at the ripped sheets. They were washed but never replaced. He thought it would be funny. Pictured Loki slinking off to bed only to stomp back blushing and annoyed, holding Tony's little trophy. Stupid, stupid.

He lays Loki on the bed like he'll break. Unclasping the locket, he sets the open face in his hand and stares at the dim amber stone. He touches it directly, reaching for it like he does the aether. It remains dormant.

Tony's breath catches, and he covers his face with his hand. Like the wraith man said, the stone demands a sacrifice. The life of someone he loves. Hela steps through the hatch, and Tony hates himself for what he's about to do.

He closes his fist around the dead stone and sets his jaw.

"I need a favor, kid."

Hela look lost, afraid. Far too young. He holds the necklace by the chain and lowers it into hir palm. Curls hir fingers into a fist and holds it in his hand.

"I need you to help me bring him back."

Ze shakes hir head, eyes wide with horror, and he looks away. Can't meet hir eyes.

He twists his wrist, and a pistol appears. One of his designs. Forty-four caliber. Solid steel frame. Not a bad way to go.

"No-" Hela whispers, nearly tripping when ze tries to back way and hits the bottom edge of the hatch.

"Your brothers need you to." he says calmly, steadying hir with a hand on hir elbow.

"I don't want to kill anyone."

"What's Loki's prophecy?"

"I can't-"

"Kid, your whole family is tied up in Ragnarok. Now tell me the truth, what's Loki's prophecy?"

"L-Light Surtur's crown on the eternal flame-"

"Exactly. Without him there's no Ragnarok. Without Ragnarok, we don't win."

"I don't know how to shoot-"

Metal clicks on metal as he flips the gun around and holds the handle out. With shaking hands, ze takes it and stares at Tony like ze's forgotten hir own name. He mimes a gun with his fingers and points to the back of his head, just above his neck.

"Right here, see the divit?" he says, and now he's shaking. Imagining cold still on his brain stem.

"I don't want to kill anyone." Hela pleads. Tony wants to shoot himself, but that's not how it works. For Hela to revive Loki, the stone has to obey hir. Ze has to pull the trigger.

"It's just point and click. It'll be-" Tony's voice cracks, and swallows. "I'll be dead before I hit the floor. I won't feel a thing."

Hela holds the gun out and tries to make him take it. He puts his hand around the barrel and angles the tip to his throat.

"You are the toughest, most resourceful, kindest person I know. This doesn't define you, alright? It doesn't. It's just something I need your help with."

The aether stirs within him, and he reminds himself of all the nights he and Hela sat on the couch throwing popcorn at each other. Falling asleep to Breaking Bad. Talking about the 'cute boys' in music videos. Ze's harmless, ze's not a threat.

The gun shakes in hir hand, and Tony steadies hir.

"He'll hate me. He'll blame me." ze says.

He slides hir finger over the trigger, and lays his thumb on top.

"It's okay. Close your eyes. We'll do it together." he says, checking his aim. His pulse hammers and it makes his Adam's apple brush the barrel. Quickly, now, before he loses his nerve.

"Three." he says, pressing his thumb and hir finger back. "Two." _One._

 _Blam. A flashbulb of pain and then nothing._

 _He doesn't hear the discharge. There's a ringing in his ears that drowns everything out._

 _Warm, wrinkled hands shake his shoulder._

 _"-sir, young sir, wake up. Why on Earth are you sleeping at school? Wake up, it's time to go home."_

 _Tony brushes the hand away._

 _There's a ringing in his ears, and it's the last time he'll ever hear it._

 _He listens. He listens._


	20. Chapter 20

Loki has a theory Stark cannot disprove. He is a man of science, and she has the data on her side.

She finds it pertinent to distinguish, given that English is her fifth language, the exact meaning of the word. Unbidden, she slips into a memory. A dark bedroom that smells sharply of sex, and two friends laying on sheets that should be charcoal grey but are actually sunshine yellow.

Anthony is naked, as he often was during the first two weeks. Of course that means she is too. He's drawing figure eights on her stomach, or perhaps they're infinities, or molecules, or motorcycles. These are all things Anthony draws whenever there's a spare moment.

He's long winded when he's drunk. And very touchy.

"Cause, see, people are just idiots. That's the first thing you gotta know about us humans, alright? We're stupid. Like, unbelievably stupid. You want an example? Okay, we have this word, 'theory.' And a theory, is like...the Oscars of science. A theory is an idea that nobody can disprove. It's supported by facts, it's tested, it's like 99.999% gotta be true. Gravity. Time. Evolution. But people, stupid people, they run around talking like, 'i have a theory that my boyfriend's cheating on me. I can't prove it, but I just know'. Well that's bullshit, right? Bullshit. That's a hypothesis, not a theory."

The memory fades, and she returns to the yellow room again. There is a chalkboard on the wall, although on Asgard they used enchanted placards. Her theory is written there, in large flowing letters.

 _Everything is Loki's fault._

She doesn't see why this is so objectionable to the gatekeeper. Her data set is comprehensive, well organized, and consistent. Three out of four parents agree that she wasn't worth the trouble, and her many jilted lovers will vouch for her detestable character. She doesn't see the problem.

"May I die yet?" she asks petulantly.

Stark's voice emanates from the ceiling. It has grown progressively more annoyed with each iteration.

"Let's try this again."

The room dissolves into darkness, and Loki flops on the floor. Enough, she's had well enough of this nonsense.

Her first memory has no visual component. It is warmth, and safety. The sensation of being held by a large body and rocked back and forth.

In life she recalled it often, pushing herself to remember more. This memory taunts her because her infant self did not open their eyes. She does not know who made her feel so secure. Are they pale or dark blue, male or female, neither or both? She doesn't know, and she never will.

Light returns with the flicker of flames in a sitting room. Noble ladies in yellow robes sit around the fire pit gossiping while Loki crawls about the floor. Thor is in mother's lap, and all the women are cooing over his yellow hair. Loki is too young to give a tit, pawing on hands and knees toward Aunt Freya. She wears the most beautiful shoes he has ever seen, and he wants to put his mouth all over them.

Covering her face in her hands, adult Loki groans. The memory pauses, and Stark walks out of the fire. Yellow eyes give her that assessing gaze she both dreads and craves. She wants to shrivel up and die already.

"What's so bad about this?" Stark asks.

"Would it make a difference if I begged? I can be humble, if that is what you want. I can be a great many things."

"But isn't that the problem? With this memory, I mean. You shift for the first time when you touch her shoes."

"That isn't why I hate it." Loki says, glaring at her younger self.

She hates this memory because little Loki sits at Freya's feet for ten minutes wanting to ask to be picked up. He never does, because he is afraid. Adults are unpredictable and quick to punish when he uses the wrong words, so he contents himself with admiring her shoes.

Her younger self's cowardice angers her. Was she not called silver tongue for a reason? Is it so difficult to open one's mouth and talk? When he turns into a snake, the shrieks of fear are amusing by comparison.

"You aren't even old enough to walk. Do you think it's fair to expect clear speech?"

"Fairness is a construct. There are standards, and those who fall beneath them. It matters not why." Loki snaps.

"But was it really your fault?"

"My behavior frightened my mother's guests and brought shame on my house. Yes, it was most clearly my fault."

Stark shakes his head, and the memories move on. The sitting room becomes a stable, with yellow horses tied to the stalls. Master Gofriedr, his tutor, holds out a shovel.

"It's not fair!" Loki says, kicking dirt on Gofriedr's robes. His face is red with fury, and his little hands balled into fists. "I didn't do anything, it was Thor."

His tutor frowns at his soiled garment and throws the tool at Loki's feet.

"Watch your words, young one. Some would call them treason."

"Well I call it hogwash." Loki spits, picking up the shovel.

"Do you truly not understand your mistake?"

Loki glares at the man twice his height, and shakes his head. Gofriedr puts a hand on Loki's shoulder and walks him deeper into the stable.

"You're not like other boys, Prince Loki. Your brother is important, and not so wise. You are being punished because you allowed him to run wild at the tournament. He insulted the regent of Vanaheim, and nearly started a war."

"How am I supposed to stop him?" Loki asks, pudgy face scrunched in a scowl.

The glaze of childish anger makes grown Loki very proud of herself. Inside she'd been a torrent of guilt and shame, replaying that day at the tournament over and over and hating herself for doing nothing. But to her tutor she passed it off as anger, and it was skillfully done. Her mother would have been proud, if she hadn't already been furious.

"He is indeed a precocious fighter, but you are clever and persuasive." Gofriedr says, frowning with a peculiar look in his eyes. "Learn to sway him with your words. One day he will be king, and a leader needs wise council."

"Father says we will both be kings."

"And so you shall. You will be his most trusted advisor, and when he rules it will be your wisdom he speaks. Do you see?"

"I understand." Loki sighs, stepping up to the first stall and coughing at the stench.

Gofriedr pats his back. "Good. I would hate to teach your lessons in the stables whist you shovel dung all the rest of your days."

Loki sticks his tongue out and his tutor walks away chuckling. The chalkboard returns, along with a line of Midgardian students desks. The writing is the same, with only a small revision.

 _Everything (?) is Loki's fault._

Stark sits at the teacher's desk, slouching like a king on a throne. At least the stone is giving her a nice view, if this is how she shall spend eternity. Stark reads the text, eyebrows raised.

"Hard to argue with that one, isn't it?" he says, crooking a slight grin. "I mean, seriously. Your brother nearly started a war, and they convinced you it was your fault. If you ask me-"

"No one asked you."

"-someone else deserves the title God of Lies."

The scene whips, and the desk Loki was sitting on disappears. Hitting the ground so hard makes it difficult to determine the memory at first. Then she hears her mother's voice. The first time, she struggled with this one, but now she expects it. Exposure makes the pain less biting.

"To deceive is to be one with a person's perceptions. In order to trick, you must first determine what their expectations are. How they see the world." Frigga explains, casting replicas of herself in a circle around Loki.

Older now, his nose is level with her shoulder. Glancing at her shadows, he chews his cheek thoughtfully.

"How do I do that?"

"With empathy." she says, all six of her shadows fixing their dresses. "You summon up everything you know about a person, and try to imagine how they feel. And most importantly, what they want. Each person has a unique perspective, just as each of these shadows can see only one angle of you. All together, they see everything, but individually they are restricted."

Loki nods, spinning in a circle to see each clone individually.

"Deception is the art of isolating one perspective, and using what that person does not know against them."

"What if I don't know the other perspectives?" Loki asks.

He looks thoughtful, but it's a facade. The question was worded and reworded before it left his lips. He was already a better liar than he knew. This lesson only codified techniques he'd intuited years before.

"Then you've acted too soon. Gather as much information as you can before making a decision. Decisions close doors. Once you've made one you cannot go back."

Frigga clasps her hands in the small of her back, and trades places with the clone behind Loki. He jumps, spinning around, and his mother smiles.

"Now enough instruction. Why don't you try?"

The memory washes away like rain on a window pane. Stark remains seated at the teacher's desk, nonplussed by Loki's frustration.

"You are woefully mis-representing the facts." Loki says, setting her hands on her hips.

"They're your memories, I don't see how I'm representing anything."

"Context is everything. Here-" Loki says, walking to the chalkboard. She clears the writing with a wave of her hand and writes in slanting cursive.

 _1) Svaðilfari_

"This, I think will very clearly demonstrate the theory." she says, reforming the room around her. The teacher's desk stays, as does Stark in his smug pose, but the rest transforms into the King's Study on Asgard.

It's more subdued than other palace rooms. The closed walls lending themselves to more privacy and focus. A long table spans the columned walls, and Odin's advisors cluster over a yellow map.

Thor stands to his right, and Loki to his left. Every eye in the room is bleary from hours of debate.

"I don't see why we need a wall." Thor complains, waving at the pile of sketches dismissively. "Asgard has never fallen, and any who try shall feel the wrath of my hammer."

"What of the citizens? Are we to allow the enemy free entry while you battle?" Tyr asks, affronted, and Loki stiffens at Odin's side.

Thor begins to reply, and Loki cuts him off. "Forgive Thor, dear Uncle, he did not mean to dismiss your concerns. Merely to say that the price is far too high."

Again, Thor opens his mouth, so Loki continues in a rush. "Perhaps I may propose a solution?"

Tyr shifts his weight, and suddenly Loki feels all the eyes on him. He swallows, thinking fast.

"If this giant is a gambling man, then maybe we can tempt him with a wager? Give him one third the time to build it, and offer his full price only if he succeeds." Loki says, standing straighter when two advisors nod along. "Since he certainly cannot build a wall around all of Asgard in one winter, we will have what we require without paying his outrageous price."

Odin looks upon him with surprise, and even from her place in the corner Loki feels the pride emanating off her former self. The sight sickens her. So hungry for approval, like a puppy begging for scraps.

Stark spins back and forth in his swivel chair as the men stand and filter out.

"You can't blame yourself for how it worked out."

"Context." Loki tuts, "Context."

The memory warps at the crackling fire, the walls becoming trees and taking on the low light of a full moon.

Loki is wearing the same clothes. Or rather, getting out of them. Svaðilfari shoves her into the trunk of a tree and she jerks him close by his unbuttoned yellow tunic.

His lips slide down her neck and she moans. "You're rather attractive, sir, when you're not a horse."

"You're very daring, madam, when you're not a man." he growls, and chases after when she runs into the woods laughing.

Stark spins his chair, watching them go. "You only did what they taught you to do. Lie, hide, deceive."

"Context." Loki says, crossing her arms.

The flickering fire acquires a latticed iron grate, and the towering pines blur out into an early spring sky cut into rectangles by golden columns. Odin's open air observatory has never felt so claustrophobic.

"He forced me, father. That horrible beast forced me-" she cries, clutching the bump on her stomach. "But I could not let him complete the wall. I did as you asked and kept him away. For Asgard, all for Asgard."

Odin sits sternly beside Frigga, their faces a study in shock and disappointment. Loki still feels ill, although it is only a fraction of how she felt then.

"I want to keep it. The babe did nothing wrong." she says, curling around her stomach like she expects to be attacked. Like she is a battered victim and not an unexpected mother learning too late what it means to create a life.

The classroom returns, this time with nondescript posters and a big, round clock. Stark's intelligent yellow eyes read her every tick and twitch.

"Okay, so that's pretty bad." he admits.

"At last we agree. Now may I please pass on?" Loki asks, forcing her hands away from her stomach. Eight hundred years and she still hasn't kicked the habit.

Stark tips his head to the chalkboard.

"Why don't you finish your list. I want to see where this goes."

"By the Norns." Loki curses, stalking across the room and selecting a piece of chalk.

 _1) Svaðilfari_

 _2) Angrboða_

 _3) Sigyn_

 _4) Váli and Narfi_

 _5) Laufey - twice_

 _6) Earth_

 _7) Thor - no regrets_

 _8) Baldr_

 _9) Höðr_

 _10)_

Tapping the chalk on the board, she hesitates over number ten. It's nonsense, though, since the gatekeeper already knows her thoughts.

 _10) Tony_

"Although the mortal concept of hell is false, I find this a remarkably close approximation." Loki huffs, dropping the chalk on the wooden tray.

"This isn't about morality." Stark says. "If it were you'd be doing great."

Even the implied failure is enough to get her negative thoughts going, and she slams her hand onto the nearest desk. Breathing around the pain, she concentrates and allows it to center her. Anthony would disapprove, but she's dead, what does it matter?

"Then what, pray tell, is this about?"

Stark is unfazed by the violence and the noise, he simply pivots back and forth on the chair's axis.

"You mean you really don't get it?" he says, tilting his head. "Ok, let's try this again."

"Tell me." Loki demands, kicking at a desk and sending it sliding away. The whole order of the room is disrupted, and she finds that uncomfortably satisfying. Stark sits up, suddenly attentive.

"That. That's it, you're so close."

"To what?" Loki asks, losing her last shred of calm.

"Your big lie, dipshit." Stark says, jumping to his feet energetically. He wipes away Loki's list and scribbles out a new message. "Everyone's got one. That little voice in your head. You know the one. I know you know the one."

He glances back at Loki like he expects some kind of response. She nods, sharply, still not comprehending. Stark continues to write, his hand flying across the board and sending white dust flying with the intensity of his tapping.

"That's their lie. When they come to me, I make them sacrifice. I show them what really matters. And I have to say, I've never met anyone as stubborn about it as you."

He steps back, and Loki balks at what he's written. Reads it three times before it sinks in.

 _Loki is NOT the god of lies._

A bell rings, aggressively loud and in a manner Loki's never heard before.

"Ah, damn. We're out of time. I guess you'll have to do the rest for homework."

"What in Odin's beard is homework?" Loki spits. And falls backwards, passing through the floor like the surface of a lake. Stark bends at the waist to watch her go. The soles of his shoes are as black as the square outline of the room, getting further and further away.

"Good luck, kiddo. I believe in you." he calls mockingly, flashing a peace sign just as Loki smacks into something warm and unpleasantly squishy.

Awareness drips in like a leaky tap.

Itchy skin. Recycled air. A sea of seiðr roiling under the surface.

She sits up the moment she remembers. Thanos, Vormir, the Soul Stone. This is no time to be laying about.

The light burns when she opens her eyes, and already she resents returning to this fallible body. The Jotun eyes are too sensitive, and she knows she cannot change. Covering them like some weak mortal, she rolls on her side and coughs at the overwhelming smell of blood.

"What has that fool done?" she croaks, although she has no genuine desire to know.

She wants to be dead again, unbound and weightless. This body is too large, too sweaty, and in severe need of a shave. Her skin prickles and itches from the burns. Healed and wishing to be exfoliated. Maddening, horrible.

Hela's magic licks at her side and she twists, forcing her eyes open. They are on the shuttle, in the sleeping quarters, and there is blood smeared on the wall below the hatch.

Her child is whimpering on the floor with a handgun at their feet. Loki's stomach drops.

"What's wrong?"

Hela wails, shaking their head and pulling their knees to their chest. Loki stands.

"Where is Tony?"

Distraught and barely breathing, Hela mouths soundless words and points at the hatch. Dread creeps up her spine. She runs to the door.

"Don't-" Hela shouts.

There is a body in the kitchen. On the floor. Under a sheet.

Loki blacks out. She doesn't know what she does, or for how long. All she knows is that when she returns she has Anthony's head in her lap and her hand on his chin. His body is still warm but he's not there. His throat is not there, his brain is not there. She touches his cheek, his scraggly overgrown beard, and feels nothing. She holds his hand to her wrist and feels nothing. She puts her forehead to his brow and feels everything, everything at once.

No trial has ever hurt like this. Not punishments, or severed limbs, or venom burnt eyes, or childbirth. It is every unfair thing condensed into a poison creeping through her veins.

Life before Anthony was a bleak white waiting room. A thousand years of waiting to finally, finally meet him. And when she did, it was as if the doctor came and led her to another, different limbo where she waited for Anthony to die. All the while thinking _if only I had my apple if only, if only._

But the apple was worthless. It merely dropped her in another waiting room. A black, empty void where she must wait to join him on the other side. She knew it was coming, that's the worst of it. She knew and she did nothing. Of course she tried, but that doesn't count if she failed. Not for anything.

Lucidity strikes her like lightning. Lady Death. Of course, of course. She's been there before, she knows the way. All she needs is a bargaining chip. A life, a soul. Perhaps her own, in a pinch.

She reaches for her locket, and it's not there. Not on her neck, not in her pocket, not on her wrist. It's gone.

Without the Space Stone she's trapped, in every sense. Trapped in this body, trapped in this room, trapped in a life without Anthony. Magic gushes out of her skin, and red, red energy seeps out her arms. Dripping down, down, down like her soul is bleeding.

It is not the first time her body has horrified her, but it is very nearly the worst. She stares at her sharp-nailed hands where energy bubbles like pus, like an infected wound.

"What in Bor's balls-"

Hela hovers on the other side of the hatch, swaying on their feet. She turns to her child, and all she sees is fear and apology.

"It left him, after-" they break off, covering their face, "I wasn't fast enough, I couldn't get him through the door."

The aether boils and swirls around Loki. Without her anchor she is adrift, her mania weaponized. It picks up speed, growing larger. She freezes, holding it as though it were her own. Frigga's mantra soothes her fears, an old ritual to help Loki contain herself.

Stop, Breathe, Think, Decide.

Stop. Breathe.

Draw your seiðr from the ground. Inhale, and the power flows to you. Exhale, and release it to the Norns. Keep a tight hold, don't let the chaos own you. Never let the wild parts win.

Inhale. Two. Three. Four.

Exhale. Two. Three. Four.

Red ropes reverse their descent and return to her body. Too full, now she can feel her own power underneath. Stoppered with no outlet, stubbornly refusing to flow.

Now more than ever, she cannot lose control. She must be better than herself, must obey her rules. For Anth-

For Hela. For her children.

She stares breathlessly at Hela, but more specifically at the locket in their hand. It glows a brilliant sunshine yellow, like maps and horses and unbuttoned shirts and campfires, and suddenly Loki understands.

"You didn't." she says, stunned.

"I'm sorry-" they plead, stepping through the door with their arms outstretched.

Loki flinches, repelled by the supplication.

"And you obeyed?" she snarls, gripping Tony's pale face and watching it blur around her tears. "Did I raise a spineless servant?"

"I didn't want to. Please-"

"Get in the cockpit." Loki orders, bent over Tony and rocking.

Hela shakes their head, stepping closer.

Loki points at the door. "Now, before I say something hateful."

"I'm sorry." Hela says again, shuffling towards the security door.

"Child, I swear-"

"Give me to Death. I'll go. I'll make it right."

"I gave my word that I would not. To you, and to him." Loki chokes, "I made an oath before the Norns. Now go to the cockpit and set a course for Muspelheim."

Hela sniffs loudly. They close the door. Loki cradles Anthony's body in her arms and disintegrates half the kitchen.

The plane of fire is sweltering, unbearable. Worse, the quiet of the cockpit got her thinking.

Contemplation is a dangerous enterprise. It gives her treacherous mind ammunition. Anthony's last words reverberate inside her skull like the bullet ricocheted in his. _Do I have to order you?_ Guilt burns her stomach remembering his tone, his exasperated expression. The last time their eyes met she wore a look of defiance.

She truly was unworthy of him. Unable to obey even a simple request. _Get out your daggers._ Fight. Prove your allegiance. Honor and good judgement are well out of her grasp, but loyalty and obedience has been beaten into her since birth. She ought to know how to be useful, by now. But when the critical moment came, she hadn't a scrap of deference for her protector. The man who'd given her everything.

Gut turning like an over-hot cauldron, she carries on. The sharp-stoned craters and hissing vents nearly match the boiling of her blood as she seeks out Surtur's throne. Her Jotun body is not meant for this, but her magic lies dormant still. If anything it shrinks further and further away as her thoughts spiral and she pulls harder and harder at her last dregs of control.

To unleash her emotions now would guarantee failure. Under the heat and the pressure of this realm she would sink, and never again rise. Even as the molten ground ate the flesh from her bones she would sit and wail, burning one atom at a time for a hundred years.

It is no exaggeration. Jotun are difficult to kill, and she would not hurry. She deserves every second of suffering for failing Anthony. For allowing this to happen when it was her primary duty to keep him safe and satisfied. But not yet, not now. First, she must honor his sacrifice.

The path there is tediously long, and her legs feel like jelly from the heat. The fiery king slouches in his glory, his sword white hot and resting at his side.

"Odinson. Chaos Bringer. You're so late, I thought you weren't coming."

"I always arrive precisely when I mean to." Loki lies, tugging experimentally on the aether's power. The frequency of it pricks painfully at her fingertips, uncooperative and reluctant to hold shape.

"And Lady Death's pet, what an honor." Surtur says, rising.

Hela scowls, their anger manifesting in a two handed blade they hold poised at their shoulder.

"Can we get on with it? I have a pressing appointment with the apocalypse." Loki replies, tightening her arm guards and drawing the aether into a rotating ring around her person.

Surtur's face splits in a cracked, white-hot grin. "All will suffer. All will burn."

The ground begins to shake, groaning cracks forming in the charred ground. At first Loki thinks the chamber is erupting, and then the fire giants charge from the shadowed pits of the caldera. Hela summons a circle of black blades, arms outstretched and ready as the army advances, the two of them versus hundreds. Loki grimaces.

"If you stab me on accident, you can kiss your internet time goodbye." she threatens.

"It would be worth it to see the look on your face." Hela says, clicking their tongue and tilting their head in a way that reminds Loki devastatingly of Anthony. There's no time to think about it though, for they are swiftly overrun by the blur of bodies and carnage.

Hela is a dancer at Loki's side, graceful and deadly in their efficient strikes. Eight giants run at them in a circle, and Hela does not so much as flinch. Jumping into the air, they spin and a rain of onyx daggers strike down the whole wave at once. Fiercely proud, she leaves the small fry to Hela and returns her attention to Surtur. He is as large as a bilgesnipe, and slow. Loki hopes that will prove advantageous.

The glowing blade of Surtur arcs through the cloying air, and Loki rolls to the side. She lands in a crouch and thrusts out her hand to send a shock of aetheric energy into Surtur's side. Rocky skin crumbles from the blow, but the magma within his body melts and in seconds the wound is repaired.

Continuing its swing, the massive sword comes back in a fast slash. It cuts a burnt slice right through her armor, searing her skin and throwing her into a stone pillar.

Ash invades her nostrils as she pants for air, the odor of sulfur overwhelming her as the column shatters and rocks rain down on her. She knocks away as many as she can, but the effort distracts her. Surtur's next swing nearly divorces her from her legs.

Fortunately the blade is lit up like a torch, and she manages to dodge the follow-up stab. It lodges deep in the ground, and she acts fast, drawing the aether into a dagger and slashing with all her strength at Surtur's wrist.

The blade cuts true. A craggy, black hand hits the ground like lead and Surtur spits fire. Everything is growing foggy as the foot soldiers stir up dust and her body temperature approaches critical levels.

That is her excuse anyway, if someone should ask how she did not notice the dragon before it struck. With feet as large as Loki's torso the beast grinds her into the dirt.

When the rock cracks under her she doesn't feel the burn of steam. She feels stabbing cold, as if she's been dumped in a vat of liquid nitrogen. Surtur stomps closer, the vibrations resonating through Loki's pinned body.

"I had time to think about this day." Surtur growls.

Sharp points of pain dig into her chest, as the weight turns dull rocks into torturous pikes.

"A thousand years of fire and dust I waited. Why should my victory depend on a tiny son of Odin?"

She screams. Feels her ribs flex just on the edge of shattering, and her vision whites out. The dragon's claws bite deep gashes in her back and she can't help wriggling even though the movements worsen the wounds.

All the while Surtur's speaks. "I will have my own name written on the ashes of Asgard. The only crown which will burn is yours."

"Father-" Hela yells, far off. Loki peels her eyes open, searching. It's bleary. She's so hot and overwhelmed by pain, but she reaches her hand out and hopes. The hazy figure of her daughter struggles against a veritable wall of enemies and Loki knows she will not make it.

A frigid burn lances through her shoulder, the searing stab of a molten, soul-forged sword. Stark's classroom swims to view in her pain drunk mind, horrible chicken scratch writing defacing the chalkboard.

 _Loki is NOT the god of lies._

After all her failed efforts she's finally, truly dying. Her body is breaking and as everything goes dark she realizes with gaping certainty she wants to live.

 _Loki is NOT the god of lies._

He promised her. That idiot human with his bleeding heart and bottomless eyes, he promised her a life. A whole one. He promised her safety, and she is dying like a literal ant under a boot. That imbecile broke his promise, and she will not accept that kind of insolence. No mortal, living or otherwise, defaults on her deal.

 _Loki is NOT the god of lies._

Somewhere deep, a spark ignites.

Loki burns. Inside and out, all over. Flames from her mouth, from her hand, from her rage. Her nails dig into the ground and push. Arms shaking, sweat pouring from her brow, she pushes with the ferocity of an explosive charge.

Inhale power. Exhale flames. Burn every restraint.

Seiðr floods her senses. Licking flames erupt from her back as she stands. Dragon claws dig trenches in her flesh and the pain only spurs her further. She grabs the smoldering blade in her chest with both hands.

Inhale. Power. Pleasure. Pain.

Exhale. Heat. Energy. Flame.

Spitting sparks, she pushes the blade out of her back, the cuts on her palms bleeding and burning and filling her nose with the odor of singed life. Her body is too small, doesn't feel right.

Inhale. Dust. Sulfur. Ash.

Exhale. Bigger. Hotter. Higher.

Surtur's sword is longer than she prefers, but it's so very satisfying to turn it against him. The injustice of a thousand souls warms her palms as she beheads the dragon with one fluent cut. She doesn't wait for the body to fall, she rotates to the retreating form of Surtur and drags the sword's smoldering tip on the ground behind her.

"I would have your fealty, monster." Loki growls, kicking Surtur to his back and holding him under her boot.

"You cannot stop Ragnarok."

"I aim to cause it." Loki says, grinding down with her heel. "Your oath, beast."

"I am Asgard's doom. The great prophecy will come to pass."

"Excellent. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Loki brings down the blade, removing Surtur's crown with a brutal swipe. The form beneath her surges and smokes, and retreats within the severed, blackened skull.

The clash of blades and a death cry signals the end of Hela's fight, and Loki shifts down to normal size. Flames still flicker from her hands and she finds she doesn't mind. Were she to follow her training, she would snuff the unpredictable magic immediately. But it has been nearly a week. She lets the fire live and revels in the sense of rightness.

Approaching Hela with easy strides, she shifts from Jotun to woman to man and back simply because she can. The alignment of body and spirit is a sweet relief, after a week of always feeling wrong.

Her child pants, stepping through a field of once-living rock, and wipes soot from their face.

"That's not the aether."

"No." Loki agrees, holding out her hand for them to see. It's no ordinary fire. Her hand is black and cracked, glowing red within and emitting pops of yellow-green fiendfyre.

"It's amazing." Hela says, waving fingers through the flames. Their face falls. "I wish he could've seen."

The fireball flares, burning her emotions like gasoline. She closes her fist, sighing, and gradually cools down. The faint smell of carbon is reminiscent of home, to scents of burning wood and engine oil.

An old ache beats at her chest, and she feels tired. So unreasonably tired of controlling herself, of being good. One thousand years is well enough time to pay one's dues. She is owed some happiness, and she will have it. Dragging the cold steel sword, she retrieves Surtur's head.

"He will see. Soon." Loki says.

Hela's demeanor sours. Suspicion, Loki's oldest companion.

She sighs. "Do you not trust me?"

"No." Hela says, bold faced.

Loki approves. They should not trust her. "Alright, can you trust me? In this specific context."

"I would more easily trust a plan."

Reaching cautiously for her dimensional pocket, Loki is pleased to feel her magic flow after such a long absence. It flickers less consistently than it used to, has a certain mind of its own. Gratitude soothes what frustration she would otherwise feel. She can excuse imperfection, in exchange for this small comfort. The pocket opens like the clasp of a purse, and she deposits her burdens with a flick of her wrists.

A gold locket hangs around Hela's neck, and Loki unclips it. Opens the face, and holds it before her like the only compass she needs.

"We can discuss on the way." she says, and bids Hela to follow her.

Technically speaking, one can enter Niflheim from any realm. Loki expects the stairs from Muspelheim to be long, but the escalator is a surprise.

The ride is slow. Stainless steel ceiling panels gradually become exposed wiring and bare scaffolding. Evidently the plane of the dead is under renovation.

They are deposited into a never ending corridor. Black painted wood doors, black walls, red paisley carpet. Stylish, if one's barometer for style is a cloak-clad secret society. Loki alters his armor to a slim-cut suit for the simple delight of matching. Besides, it wouldn't due to look a mess when he sees Tony again.

And he will. Provided Lady Death takes the bait.

He waits, playing idly with the locket in his pants pocket, and keeps a proprietary arm around Hela's shoulders. They fidget, expression surly and eyes darting around as though looking for an escape. It's vexing. He stands to lose half his family today, if anyone should be upset it's him.

A woman in a black veil and cocktail dress exits a door far away. Loki straightens his tie. Goosebumps rise on his arms in time with her clicking heels, and Hela becomes progressively more agitated as she drawers near. He holds tight. It will be disastrous if they run.

"You know who I am." Loki says, "And what I want."

The lady stops, shrewd eyes expectant.

He shoves Hela forward. "I've brought payment."

Loki expected to feel nervous, or at least guilty. This is something he swore not to do. But good sense is not enough anymore, it's ash in the bottom of his heart. He wants Anthony, no matter the price.

With a measured step forward, Lady Death inspects Hela. The movement places her under a light, and when the beam ghosts over her face it reveals her true appearance. Bare bone, devoid of skin or any kind of softness. She moves past, and her glamour returns.

Loki can't help but shiver. He is a coward at heart, a closely guarded secret that is nonetheless true. Death scares him immensely.

The slender woman bites the middle finger of her satin opera glove. It slides off her finger like the most sensual caress, and she drops it to the floor. Hela jumps, stepping back, and Loki puts a hand to their back.

Snapping her fingers, the lady summons a soul. An orb of the most brilliant white blue. She rolls it over her fingers like Anthony sometimes flips with coins, and Loki knows she does it on purpose. Drawing bone white fingers elegantly out, she turns and beckons Hela to follow.

"Pardon me, I forgot-" Loki says, pulling the necklace from his pocket. "A parting gift."

Stepping between them, he clasps the locket around Hela's neck. Their eyes are wide with fear. He leans close, tucking a lock of hair behind their ear and kissing their temple.

"Quickly, love." he whispers, opening the locket and urging their hand around the stone. They swallow, and close their eyes.

Body glowing yellow, they pull an orb out of their mouth. It sparkles in the darkness, shimmering like seashells and crystals and all good things. Then it splits, like the diagrams Anthony showed Loki once about cell division. At first just one, then a stretch, a pop, and suddenly two. The new one is purple, deep and smokey like a dreary day.

"Well done." Loki says, holding them both in his palms. "Which is which?"

Hela points at the purple one, stiff and only half aware. Loki takes it, and turns.

Death is bemused, which he's never seen before. He extends his hand, unabashed.

"A soul for a soul. It is a fair trade."

"Incomplete." Death says without opening her mouth. The sound is not unlike a record played backwards.

Loki grits his teeth and represses a flinch. "No, it is a complete identity. Their destiny. See for yourself."

Death plucks the little sphere of light and licks it. The orb grows, expanding outward in the shape of hands pressing against a viscous barrier. It changes and reaches and resolves into a skeleton with long purple hair and spiders in its eyes.

"You have your reaper, as was prophesied." Loki says, trying not to show his relief. "Payment in full. Now, my prize."

A cold wind blows from nowhere, and Lady Death lays the blue orb in Loki's hand.

"Go." she says, and Loki does not need to be told twice.

When he turns his back, they are already at the top of the escalator. Hela swallows their soul, and the light returns to their eyes. Loki breathes for the first time in minutes.

"Are you well?" he asks.

Hela seems perturbed. They shift, several times in quick succession, and none of their forms have skeletons on display.

Staring at their right hand in wonder, they smile. Where there used to be carpals, phalanges, and tough, dry sinew is a fleshy blue hand. Loki runs his thumb over it.

"Let's go." Hela says, leading the way out of the fiery depths of Muspelheim.

All the way back Loki holds the walnut sized orb tight against his chest. Jumping at every hiss of steam and bubble of magma, he rushes, ready to swallow it if he must. Not since Jori's birth has he held something so precious in his hands, and he will not lose it.

Despair nearly catches him when they return to the shuttle's kitchen. It is as they left, and Loki aches at the realization that Anthony's body is no longer a suitable vessel for his soul.

Entrusting the blue orb to Hela, he kneels on the floor for hours and knits Tony's pieces back together. Reconstructing his brain is pure terror, each motion as likely to destroy as it is to heal. This is not his art, it never was, but he doesn't allow himself to doubt.

He knows this man, inside and out, he does not need skill. The process flows by feeling alone, as if Anthony himself is guiding Loki's hand. _Reconnect this first, now that, don't worry it'll be fine, I know you can do it._ By faith alone he urges his magic and the aether and whatever scraps of himself he can spare to collaborate and recreate.

By the time Anthony's heart is beating and his brain no longer resembles ground meat, his lungs start to breathe on their own. Loki melts into the wall and waves at Hela. They rush over, sweaty and tense with the nails of one hand bitten to the quick.

Souls, it seems, are not so hard to handle. The orb wiggles in Hela's fingers the closer it comes to Anthony, and flies right into his mouth when they release it. Loki crowds him, chewing his lip raw.

If Anthony does not rise, Loki may indeed give up and watch the world burn. There is so much he failed to do, so many things he wishes he told him. Bottomless pits of questions he wanted to ask. All methodically worded and reworded. Meticulously sorted into not now, not ever, and not in a million years.

Would he mind if Loki drew constellations with his freckles? In marker on his skin, but also in the sky on a clear night. Is there anything Loki could do that would chase him away for good? What things specifically, and are there degrees of badness? Would he mind terribly if Loki smelled his memories? If he laced his food with stardust? If Loki was careful, if he was very, very good, could he possibly turn into vapor and have Tony breathe him in and out?

Is there a place on Anthony's body that Loki could brand his name? Preferably where everyone will see, but he's willing to compromise. What about the other way around, would Tony write his name on Loki? On his neck or his ear or his hand or his knee? What about his toes? Would he do it in paint, in Sharpie, in jewels or syrup or razor cuts? Would he, if Loki showed him how, would he possibly do it in seiðr on his soul?

All the unasked questions flood Loki's mind while he crouches over Anthony and panics. His skin is tan again, his eyes darting behind his lids, but he doesn't wake. One of his hands twitches and Loki feels like he's fallen off a building.

"What's wrong?" Hela asks.

Loki shakes him. Nothing.

"He's going to wake up, right? He has to." they say, and Loki starts to feel lightheaded.

With a deep inhale, he lays his hands on Tony's cheeks and soaks him in seiðr. He drains pure energy into him and washes his consciousness against the edges of his mind.

Tony gasps. Loki sags.

"What the hell." Tony groans, touching his throat, his chest, his ears.

Terror returns, as they progress to the stage where Loki could have failed monumentally. He waves a hand in front of Tony's eyes.

"Thought I told you not to bring me back."

"I didn't." Loki says defensively. "I convinced them to do it."

"Hir." Tony grunts. And Loki could cry, he's so relieved.

"Don't you ever die without me again." he growls, gripping Tony's shoulders. He smiles, eyes burning Loki like they always do. Perceptive and all-seeing as truth serum. He touches Loki's neck and ghosts a thumb over his jaw.

"Something's different. Did you get a haircut? Tattoo? You're like, twenty-eight percent less morbid."

Loki tears up, can't seem to stop. The statement is every reason he loves Tony in one innocuous phrase. The insight, the steadiness, the scientific precision of 'twenty-eight percent' that he knows is neither arbitrary nor made up. Not to mention the hidden question, tucked under the surface so Loki can avoid it if he wants. She shifts to show him her progress. Proof he hasn't lost his observational touch.

"I've had a day." she breathes. He wraps her hair around his fingers and pulls her head to his chest.

"We're okay." he says, lips to her hairline.

"We will never be okay." Loki replies, half elated and half hysteric.

"That's okay. Cause we're okay." Tony says, and by the Norns, Loki believes him. She clutches his ugly, unfashionable, blood spattered band shirt and believes him.

"Come here, Split-Screen. Don't be shy." he says, pulling Hela in, and Loki hears hir (?) huff. "I don't know how you managed it, but good game team."

Tony holds them for longer than either of them would prefer, but he does eventually let go.

"Alright, gimme a minute. I gotta piss." he grunts, rubbing at his eyes and using the table to get to his feet. Then he looks around and freezes.

"Holy shit, this place is trashed. I've seen tents at Burning Man with fewer biohazards."

"You have that effect on most rooms you enter." Loki says.

"I'll clean it. It's my fault." Hela murmurs, picking at hir bitten nails. Tony grabs Hela again. It's well meaning, but the expression on hir face over Tony's shoulder begs Loki for help. She doesn't intervene.

"It wasn't your fault." he says, patting hir back and putting both hands on hir shoulders. "I shouldn't have made you do that, but you did. And you did perfect."

Hela nods, clearly overwhelmed. Loki slips a finger through Tony's belt loop and pulls him to the bedroom. The handgun is still on the floor beside a pool of blood, and Tony kicks it under the bed.

"When we get to Earth remind me to get Hela a therapist. Don't let me forget." he says quietly.

After all they've been through she's suddenly overflowing with information. Things that used to seem silly or irrelevant all clamoring to get out. To be known.

"I saw a therapist." she confesses, surprising herself.

Tony blinks, like Loki is a light that's too bright. Like he can only look at her directly because he's half blind from continuous exposure. Her weak heart skips, and she rushes onward. Tries to tell him why she's telling him, although she herself doesn't know.

"While you were in South America. I saw a therapist and she was awful. I walked home thinking humans were fleas infesting the Earth."

"I hope you left a Yelp review." Tony says, and isn't that the most wonderful sentence ever spoken?

 _I hope you left a Yelp review._ Because that would be funny to him. To him it's perfectly natural for Loki to do something he wants her to do and never tell him. And he thinks it's equally natural to want to blow up the subway train on the way home, but he knows she won't. Because Tony thinks she's a good person who does not blow up subway trains anymore.

She kisses him, as though it is the last thing she will ever do. Perhaps it is. Perhaps this is the final breath of Loki, God of Lies. She surges forward, folding around Tony and pouring herself between his lips.

She wants him to devour Loki, God of Lies like one of his ridiculous protein shakes and leave Loki, Just Loki behind. Or perhaps, if it pleases him, he can leave Loki, Who Sometimes Lights on Fire. Tony can be so enamored with explosions, when he's not overthinking the morals.

She breaks away, and Tony shudders, dazed like they've done far more than kiss. It fans up her courage, makes her want to be daring. Sucking his earlobe and neck, she walks them to the tiny bathroom and only stops once he's leaning on the sink.

"I want to burn my name around your neck." she says into his ear. When his eyes go wide and admiring, she slams the door in his face.

"You what?" his muffled voice shouts, and Loki bites her lip. Half terrified, half delighted.

"Don't come out until you've scrubbed yourself ruddy. You smell like rotten meat." Loki calls, and goes to help Hela with the cleaning.


	21. Chapter 21

Three is a crowd in a double bed, so it's a good thing someone needs to man the helm. Tony volunteers because he's not going to sleep tonight anyway. The back of his eyelids look like death and every time he tries to doze off he startles awake moments later.

The windshield overlooks a blank horizon, not a star or a planet anywhere, and all he sees is death, death, death. An unnatural cold sticks to his bones, and although the stillness scares him, he looks directly into the black.

He wonders why he was always so afraid of being alone. Why listening to his own thoughts was so terrifying without someone there to call him brilliant and draw up a marketing plan. Losing JARVIS felt like losing a limb, but really he was a crutch. A computer can be alive, but it can't replace a father. Or a lover. Or a friend.

In the beginning he wanted Loki because being with him felt like living in two bodies at once. He thought he'd never be alone again. But he was. A lot. For months and months and months, and finally for a few hours after his soul floated out of his corpse. He was a fool to run from that.

Even in a crowd, every person is alone in their own mind. However tightly they hold, no one can ever step inside someone else's skull. Now that he's crossed the veil, everything is so much clearer. About live, about death, about love.

The most profound thing about love, he thinks, is being alone together. Learning how to steal coffee and do jigsaw puzzles and shove handwritten letters in donuts. It's looking in the mirror and watching the person you hate become the person someone loves.

So although the complete absence of life out the window scares the fuck out of him, he stares into it. He feels cold, and alone, and dead. But a few feet behind him there's warmth in Loki's body, and company in his spirit, and life gushing like a fountain from his heart. And Tony knows they're always together, even when he's alone.

On a scale of one to ten, Tony would rate that landing a negative five. But of course that's what Loki was aiming for. The shuttle is a pile of smoking garbage wedged in the exterior wall of Asgard's dungeons, and somehow no one was injured in the crash.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Hela demands, swinging a conjured sledgehammer at an Einherjar's head. The poor bastard goes down like a bag of bricks. Privately, Tony thinks it would be kinder just to kill him. The prognosis on that skull fracture ain't pretty.

"Well, I can't say I was eager to visit the dungeons as Odin." Loki says, wiping the sweat from his forehead with one hand while he shoots an arcane blast with the other.

"According to the map, political prisoners are somewhere around here." Tony says, examining a diagram on the wall. Luckily the earring translates text as well as speech.

Hela rolls hir eyes, and pushes hir hair over one shoulder.

"How precise." ze sighs. "I don't know why I expected more."

If they weren't in the middle of destroying a planet hir tone would call for an attitude adjustment, but Tony's busy pressing random buttons on a control panel. Loki walks up beside him and does a complicated gesture over the keypad. The thing glows yellow, and the forcefield blocking the entrance to the cell block disappears.

"This way children." Loki says, hopping down a short staircase in a jaunty two-step. At least someone's having a good time.

The cells they pass are all empty. Row of pristine white rooms with yellow barriers and unremarkable furnishings.

"You're sure he's here?" Tony asks, having to jog to keep up with the giants.

"Positive. Heimdall was charged by Odin himself, even Thor cannot pardon him."

"Which I'm assuming was you in disguise."

"Oh, who can say? It's all a blur." Loki grins, turning a corner at a brisk pace.

And skidding to a stop. A bulky figure is waiting for them, decked out in brown leather and leaning on a column.

"Stark, Loki. What a pleasant surprise." Thor says.

Loki pulls Surtur's sword from nowhere, but Tony waves him down.

Loki beams, breaking character as he's over come with very unmanly giggles.

"Too much?" Tony asks, crossing his arms, maybe a little defensive. As if Loki could do better.

Before Ultron he would've called Point Break a professional acquaintance, nothing more. But the look on Thor's face when he realized Tony lied was pretty tragic. And then the meathead apologized in the elevator.

"Hey buddy. Have you been juicing? You look good."

"Oh, it's a new outfit." Thor says, patting his stomach. "Less padding on the loins."

"It works for you." Tony says, stepping out of his suit in the hopes Thor gets the message. "I mean that, I'm not just blowin' smoke."

"You look like a bilgesnipe."

"Well it's been a hectic couple of weeks." Tony shrugs. "Made a murder bot, got abducted by aliens, became a super villain, died—which, let me tell you was a hell of a trip—and then, and then, and then... Ragnarok. Go figure."

"I don't want to fight you." Thor says over Tony's shoulder to Loki.

"Nor do I. Stand aside, brother."

Thor's brows furrow, his eyes wide with hope.

"Why Heimdall?" he asks.

Tony rubs his eyes. He really wishes he slept last night.

"We need to board the ship of the Mad Titan." Hela says in a fierce voice. They're spoiling for a battle, now that it's finally time. Point Break's hope turns to confusion, and Tony jumps in before this conversation goes tits up.

"Okay, so take this the right way." he says, putting his hands up and getting out of throat-grab range, since that seems to be Thor's primary mode of dealing with stress. "But there's a purple dictator of doom that's been collecting infinity stones and nobody told you."

Loki doesn't give Thor much time to process. He tries to pass him by, but an arm blocks his way.

"And yet you seek Ragnarok?"

Loki sighs. "The Titan is invincible. We have no other way of killing him."

"And we need a ship to get the Asgardian people out." Tony says.

"You would destroy Asgard to kill one man?" Thor asks.

Loki pushes past. "After all I have endured, I would do nearly anything to be rid of him."

Dropping his arm to his side, Thor watches Loki pass. The crease between his eyes deepens. Hela looks at Tony and he shakes his head. Even as the leading expert in Aesir handling, he doesn't really get Asgardians.

"I thought we would fight side by side forever." Thor says.

"You thought I would fight at your side." Loki corrects, walking away. "It never occured to you that I had my own path to walk."

"Is there nothing I can say to stop you?" Thor asks.

Loki whips around, brandishing Surtur's sword. It glows red in his grasp, and Tony's heart jumps at the charred, black hand holding it. Flames lick up Loki's arm, his skin molten and making the air round him warp like a desert highway.

"Do not mistake my discretion for hesitation. I have grown. I am not the boy who cleaned up your messes, and if you stand in my way I will not falter."

"I do not wish to fight you."

"Then come with us." Hela says, running to stand between them.

"And betray Odin? My people?"

Tony pinches his nose. "Look, we've fought this guy… I don't know how many times. And he's only getting stronger. He can reverse time, he can throw moons, he can bend space around his pinky. We've got to end this now."

"But our home-" Thor says, looking between all of them, torn.

"You can rebuild. Or find a new planet." Hela says. "Even if you beat us, someone has to stop the TItan."

"And we could really use a right hook like yours." Tony adds, crossing his arms.

Thor extends his hand and calls Mjolnir to it. Startled, Tony jumps back into his suit and aims the repulsors, but Thor pulls on a humorless smile.

"His cell is this way." he says, gesturing with the hammer and stalking down a line of unoccupied cells.

Heimdall's eyes wig Tony out, so he hangs back while Thor explains the situation. Apparently he's the universe's surveillance system, so he kind of already knew.

By the time they reach the exit to the dungeons the palace is on high alert. Guards intercept them at every turn, and it's a harried run through golden halls and sun washed terraces. They come upon an atrium and Loki tucks his sword away.

"This is my stop." he says, "The vault is just there."

"We've know way to know how fast Surtur will rise." Thor says.

"Then you'd best hurry to the Bifrost." Loki replies. "I have a few things to retrieve first. You'll have a few minutes to arrive."

"Let's hope the timing is right." Tony says.

"I can send a signal." Heimdall offers, and Loki nods.

"To work, then." he says, and Tony grabs his hand.

Loki's eyes flick down and back up. He checks all the exits in the room, and Tony shakes his head.

"Be clever." he says, "And don't fuck around once you've lit the fuse. I don't wanna tell your kids you died holding a firecracker."

Loki huffs. "I will return. As always."

"Hey now, I'm serious." Tony steps close, speaking only for the two of them. "I know you got a sassy makeover, and you're feeling good, and that's great. But don't get cocky. We haven't won yet."

"I won't be careless." Loki says, "You needn't worry."

Tony looks close, and finds he wants some insurance. A reason for Loki to toe the line.

"About the name thing-" he says, leaning chest to chest.

Loki stiffens, shoulders tense.

"Could we move it to my wrist? I want to be able to see it. "

Hope and surprise overcome his partner and his pulse hammers in his throat.

"T-That would be lovely." Loki stutters, and seems to catch himself. Tony suspects his ears are flushed under all that hair. Squeezing his hand, he decides to up the ante and see how much of a reaction he can get.

"And what about yours? I can't make up my mind. Should it say Tony or Stark?"

Loki's eyes widen, his mouth slack.

Tony winks, pleased at the rare feeling of catching Loki unprepared.

"Why not both?" Loki answers in awe, and that makes Tony smile.

"Good answer."

He kisses Loki's hand and returns to the rest of the group, ignoring the mix of averted gazes and blatant staring. Someone's got to gay up these halls before they explode in a blazing metaphor for social reform.

"Remember, we meet at the fountain in the city center." Loki says.

"You got it, princess." he says, watching Loki go and taking off in the other direction.

"So if you see everything, do I really need to look at you when I'm talking?" Tony asks Heimdall, and a wave of guards saves the dark skinned man from answering. Shame, he really wanted to know.

By the time they reach the bridge, he is really tired of Einherjar. Every few rooms they run into another squadron that has to be talked down or taken out. Thor orders the cooperative ones to evacuate the city, but they don't exactly have a getaway ride yet. They settle for "retreat to the Bifrost" and hope it won't be a warzone by the time Thanos arrives.

He has no way of knowing what Loki's up to or how long they have until Surtur's second coming. In the absence of data, there's only running and barked orders. He finds it deeply ironic that this realm of bigots has a gay pride float for a drawbridge, but Hela doesn't see the humor.

"Comedy has been used to discount and deny social bias against marginalized groups for generations-"

"You know what, forget I said anything." Tony says. It's not that ze isn't right, it's just…depressing.

They step into the gold sphere of the mechanism, and Heimdall centers himself on the raised platform. Tony really hopes they have the blueprints for this thing handy. It would suck to lose this kind of tech in the cataclysm.

"Who are we looking for?" Heimdall asks, lowering his sword in the slot and waiting as lightning crackles and the golden carapace rotates faster and faster. Time to pull the trigger then.

"Thanos." Tony says, for the first time. "We're taking the fight to him."

Heimdall's laser eyes skitter over the dotted sky, and a tube of fractured light appears within the spindle.

"Take care. There are many souls aboard the ship. It will be difficult to reopen the gate."

"If all goes well, we won't need to." Tony says.

With the click of a key settling in a lock, the Bifrost activates and the three of them are pulled into the beam by strings of light. The journey is a whirl of color and speed, and Tony finds himself enjoying it. His heart pounds as they soar through the kaleidoscopic tube, and land on the other side in a blink.

The ship looks identical. Black walls and transparent walkways, glowing purple catwalks with lifts rising and falling.

"I'm gonna take the bridge." Tony says, kicking on his boots. "You two-"

"I think we get the idea." Hela says, grimacing at the growing crowd of chitauri soldiers and mounted gunners.

Blocking a swinging sword with hir helm, ze sends out a spray of onyx stakes. Eight chitauri fall at once, in a pile, and ze opens the locket. Yellow light glows like sunshine in the dark atrium, piercing through the gaps in hir fingers. Hela's own white-grey magic fuses with the yellow and wraps itself around the fallen creatures, and one by one they rise.

By the time Tony loses sight, ze already has a battalion of undead servants at hir command. Of all the unsettling things he's seen and heard of since his life became a space opera, Hela is by far the scariest. Tony is ridiculously glad ze's on his side.

The path to the bridge isn't very obvious, but his old friends trial and error have his back. To his relief, Thanos isn't there. Cold sweat drips down his neck, and he steps into the command center.

The blood chilling sound of the Chitauri is translated into words compliments of the earring, so monsters garble in one ear and a highly organized hive mind buzzes in the other. The language must be hard to translate, because it comes through as sequences of words rather than complete sentences.

"Wheel. Turn. Warp. Leader."

"Enemy. Two. Two. Tall. Gun."

"Danger. Fear. Panic."

"Calm."

"Ok, listen up everybody, this is your new captain speaking." Tony says, landing in front of the big open window and bringing out his big guns.

"Alarm. Confusion. Leader?"

"Leader?"

The aliens shriek and huddle behind their stations, and Tony puts his arms down. Keeps the gun, though.

"Who's in charge here?" he asks, and the Chitauri click and cower. Fuck, this is getting nowhere fast. He picks up the nearest bug and has his suit project the coordinates of Asgard.

Pointing at the coordinates, he yells. "Here's our new destination. Hop to it."

The Chitauri seem to understand. They scramble back to their work spaces and orderly communication returns. Tony checks the screen, and he's surprised to find they aren't that far away. Maybe twenty light years.

Once they're up and running, he releases his hostage and identifies the security station by the floating orbs of surveillance magic. Hela's got an army now. A proper one with a variety of units and a clear chain of command. He's makes a mental note to never play Risk with hir.

Just when he's thinking this was too easy, Thanos appears on the monitor. Hela's army advances, and blasts of magic throw the Chitauri around like cannon fodder. It becomes an all out brawl as Thor joins the fray, charging in with Mjolnir at the ready.

Glancing around at the chittering bridge crew, he digs his heels in. He wants to help, wants to fly down there and fight, but he has a job to do. The ship needs to make it to Asgard. Loki's waiting for him. So he stays on the bridge and hopes like hell nobody dies.

The battle rages on as the ship cruises at top speed. Gems glow and floating platforms get tossed around like projectiles, but Thor and Hela keep going. They don't give an inch over the next fifteen minutes and Hela's army grows and grows with each soldier ze kills. Tony holds his breath as the distance to Asgard ticks lower and lower.

Finally the sheer numbers overwhelm Thanos, and he steps through a portal. There's the impulse to panic, to wonder where he went, but Tony focuses on the goal. Get to Asgard, find Loki. Reveal their location to Thanos and hope he takes the bait. That's all they can do, there's no value in overthinking.

By the time they make landfall, Thor and Hela have full control of the ship, and that's a fucking achievement. Walking out of the airlock feels like entering a different world. The light, the color, the fresh air, it's pretty fantastic. The crowd of riotous Asgardians, not so much. In the time since they left, it seems the city has been evacuated with no place to go. So now they're all just standing on the rainbow bridge like lost ducks.

Tony floats over them, vaguely stunned by how normal they all look. Sure, there's an overabundance of draped fabric, but none of them are armed, and a fair number of them have kids huddling around their legs.

He puts his voice on the loudspeaker. "Ah, welcome Asgardians. I'm Tony Stark, and I'll be your guide for Ragnarok. Uh, this is your getaway vehicle, as you can see it's infested with bugs. Sorry about that, we are working on that. And um, oh yeah, there's Thor. You know Thor. He's great. Say 'Hi', Thor."

Thor waves, the beautiful idiot.

"Yeah, he's gonna get you all situated while we figure out what exactly we're gonna do with you-"

A thunderous boom sounds from the palace in the distance, and the crowd turns as one. Stone and marble shatter and fly in the air as a sword the size of a skyscraper emerges from the palace walls. Wow, now that's a spectacle.

"Oh damn, guess it's that time." Tony says, landing beside Hela and her army of puppets.

"Are you ready?" Hela asks, and Tony takes a second to catch his breath.

In the city, a clawed hand reaches from the depths of the ground and Surtur climbs out of the crumbling palace, a hundred feet tall and blowing tornadoes of fire. Trees and buildings ignite around him, and Tony stiffens at the speed with which the giant is destroying the realm.

"Let's go." he says, taking flight. Hela joins him, hir bird form beating its wings to his side. It's a calming rhythm interrupted by his growing concern for Loki. They glide over courtyards, sweeping rooftops, and empty squares until they land in the open plaza in the middle of everything. A white stone fountain flows in the center, surrounded by abandoned shops and homes.

Silently telling himself not to panic, Tony paces, looking in all directions for any flicker of movement. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And then, distantly, the clop of hooves. Whipping around, he's greeted by the welcome sight of Loki riding out of a cloud of smoke on a black horse. A horse with too many legs.

"You've got to be kidding me." Tony yells, and Loki just laughs, steering the horse down a side street and urging it on.

"Tony, meet my son, Sleipnir." he calls, as Tony arcs his path to fly side by side.

"Uh...hey." Tony waves, not sure whether to look the horse in the eyes or not. Honestly, he kind of expected this at some point. All the other myths panned out, for the most part. Even so...it's a fucking horse.

"Thanos is following." Loki warns, "I don't know how he knew."

"I said his name at the Bifrost." Tony says.

Hela screeches, diving down an alley to transform in a blur of motion. Loki follows suit, pulling Sleipnir to a stop.

"Here?" ze asks, panting. Loki dismounts, his robes flapping around him as he dashes into the nearest building. Tony follows.

It's a blacksmith's forge, the walls lined with iron tools and finely crafted swords. A massive stone chimney with an open grate burns low, and Loki pulls a handful of flames from the embers. Blowing on the fire, it grows and grows and overtakes the room in an illusion.

Once he's finished, the building looks charred. The illusion covers everyone but him, and he breathes slow and deep. Finally, after all this time, they're going to put this guy down.

"Thanos!" he calls, "Olly olly oxen free. Come and get it, Frankenberry."

Thanos emerges from a portal with his gauntlet raised.

"Thanks for coming to the party." Tony says, rolling his neck and raising his fists. "Really saved me a lot of trouble."

"I didn't want it to end this way." Thanos says, and Tony throws a practice punch like he's actually planning on fighting this.

"Well, best laid plans and all that." he says, and motions for Hela to go.

He doesn't care to hear this guy justify his goals. It's time to get this over with.

Unseen by Thanos, Hela sneaks to the side of his bulky frame and activates the soul stone in hir hand. As the illusion fades, ze tugs a glowing white-blue orb from Thanos' chest. With a moment's concentration, the orb cycles through color after color until ze stops on red.

"Never surrender." ze whispers, releasing the soul. "Fight fire with fire, and show no mercy."

The soul returns to Thanos, and the titan falls to his knees, gasping and clawing at the ground. Tony takes a step back, the hair on his neck rising as Thanos succumbs to an irresistible rage. His back arches, and he slams fists on the floor, unhinged and roaring at the sky.

"I will not lose, not again." he screams, and Loki ties him down with whips of fire.

"Run." Hela yells, dashing for the door. "Lead him to Surtur."

Tony grabs Loki and follows, uncomprehending. Out in the streets, the fabric of the realm is tearing. Gashes of molten soil rend the street and the stone pavement sinks in brick by brick. Tony takes off, dropping Loki on Sleipnir's back and rising up for a better view.

No point denying it, Surtur's fucking terrifying. Even the chitauri behemoths would look like chihuahuas next to him. Shit, was he that big when Loki killed him the first time? The entire city is in flames, and going down quickly. Diving back to street level, he leads them back to the city center where Surtur is tenderizing Asgard like a steak.

Thanos chases after them, unleashing bolts of purple energy and reaching out with tendrils of mind magic. Loki stands on Sleipnir's back while the horse canters, knocking aside Thanos' attacks with ropes of aether.

"What did you do?" he yells at Hela, who runs beside Sleipnir like it's nothing.

"I changed him." ze shouts.

"Well, obviously. Into what?" Tony asks.

"Angry." ze says, "A berserker's soul. He will not run from a fight, even if he can."

"Ahead." Loki shouts, narrowly deflecting a chimney thrown by blue space magic. "We must get him to attack the giant."

Given that the entire plaza is melting and becoming part of Surtur, that doesn't seem too difficult to pull off. The horse and Loki jump from whatever solid ground is left, and Hela flies with Tony as a bird once more.

Spinning back around, he climbs high and watches with satisfaction as Thanos throws himself at Surtur's leg. With all the might of his stones, he punches and detonates, and the monster remains unphased.

The time stone glows on the titan's knuckle, a beacon of hope that he doesn't think to use. Overcome by the fervor of battle, he isn't capable of rationality. He rips at the rocky flesh of the creature to no avail, even as the world crumbles and he slowly, slowly succumbs to the lava.

Reaching the edge of the plaza, Tony feels like he can breathe again. The bubbling magma is hot on Loki's heels, but it's a clear path forward and away. Reaching out into the frothing ocean, the rainbow bridge is almost clear of the civilians, the ship's engines flaring and ready to launch.

Tony lands hard on the crystal platform, winded and disbelieving.

"We did it." he says, retracting his visor in time to see Loki dismount with his own eyes. He's windswept, hair a mess and hands covered in ash. He smiles, the real one.

"And we even followed the plan." he says, attempting to tame his hair despite the wind coming off the sea.

"The horse was a surprise." Tony quips, catching Loki's levity. Hela lands beside him, growing into a Jotun.

"Well I could hardly leave without collecting my effects."

"So do you talk?" he asks the horse. It snorts, ears tipped back.

"All my children shapeshift. He simply prefers this form."

"I'm just saying, he could make a fortune in Hollywood as a talking horse." Tony shrugs. "Are we done here?"

"Not quite." Loki says, reaching in his dimensional pocket. He pulls out some kind of glowing relic.

Tony frowns. This wasn't part of the plan.

"You couldn't keep your hands off, could you?"

"I left many of the artifacts in the vault, thank you. This I took with a purpose."

Giving it to Tony, he holds an open palm towards Hela.

"The stone." he says. Looking wistfully at it, ze hands it over.

Tony inspects the device. Metal, glowing, capable of doomsday given that it was in Odin's vault.

"The tuning fork." Loki says by way of explanation. "A dangerous but useful tool."

"What's it do?"

"It summons an entity which thrives on fear. If one can regard it without yielding, it can offer a great deal of wisdom. I am hoping it can destroy the stones. Or at least this one." Loki says, holding the soul stone.

Looking into his eyes, Tony sees a firm resolve he can only respect. It's someone at the end of a long string of mistakes, trying not to repeat the process.

"Alright, let's get it over with." he says, massaging his neck. "That blazing inferno is getting awfully close."

'Leave us please." Loki says to his kids, "This is best done without an audience."

Hela looks ready to argue, but the horse nips hir ear and snorts. Ze follows, glancing back.

"We'll be right there." Tony says, gathering his thoughts.

Ever since they played hopscotch on the universe saving Loki's kids, fear has pretty much been their life. It was so pervasive he almost stopped noticing. The loss of that threat after so long has him shaky, almost lightheaded.

When he returns his attention to Loki, he thinks his feet could leave the ground on their own. His partner is luminous. Alive and unchained and leaking pure relief. They've won.

"Look at us." Tony says, taking in the rather majestic violence happening over Loki's shoulder and the turbulent waves below. It's a fitting place to meet the God of Chaos again, for the first time.

"Indeed. Now, before our senses return and we go back to being our usual dreary selves."

Tony holds the relic between them, and Loki reaches into the circular opening where a single thread is pulled taught. He plucks it, and the world goes white.

The note is a clear and pure as a mathematical law. The perfect oscillation of a sine wave. Crashing ocean waves and distant carnage fades until all he can hear is a ringing in his ears. A sound he's only heard twice.

And when he opens his eyes, there's a shadow standing inches away. He jumps, and it grows bigger. Although the whole plane is pure white, the thing seems to suck up the brightness, like the inverse of matter.

It's skin flickers like static and a sharp toothed mouth splits out of the black. Long slurred sentences drift out like a badly tuned radio. It's his own voice, all the things he's said thoughtlessly while drunk or high or both.

 _You're outta control gorgeous. Come on gimme another smooch, you now you want to—i'm hungry, get me a scotch—you're never gonna get me in the sack with an attitude like that—hey Gold Stain, gimme a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to— Hey no, stay. I'm sorry, okay? I actually am sorry—_

"You're not my father, creature. End this charade. I come to make an offering." Loki says, so close. He can't see him, but he sounds so close.

The static quiets, and the whispered repetitions of his mistakes fall to the background. He shakes himself out of it, and the shadow is Loki right where he was before. There's a sort of presence all around, like a pressure on on his mind.

 _Offering? What offering?_

Loki pries the stone out of the locket, and holds it in his palm.

"I have two stones of great power. Partitions of a celestial, split into many parts." Loki says.

 _But why, why now, why how, who gives something free?_

"I agree. A great deal of good could come from them, but our world is not ready. We only care for power or greed. Tell me, can you destroy them? I will give you my fear, if you help me destroy them."

 _Give me fear? What fear? You have one?_

"I have many, but I can do without one." he says.

 _And this one? Who is this one?_

"I have one too." Tony says, looking into Loki's eyes with understanding.

"A fear for each stone."

 _Two fears? Two? Feast, a feast of fear for free. Give me, give me._

"Unworthy." Loki says, and out of his eyes comes red, red aether. Out of his ears and his nose and mouth, red like Mars dust. It floats up, and up and the unknown consumes it.

"Unworthy." Tony says, and the soul stone bursts into a cloud of fairy lights. Souls. Thousands of them, in all different colors. Floating to the beyond.

 _Fear. Feast, a feast of fear._

"Well met." Loki says, taking Tony's hand, and the ringing stops.

Reality returns, too loud. Heat assaults the exposed skin of his face, and the sounds of the realm breaking seem to fracture his skull. They walk to the ship in a hurry, Thor and Hela heckling them to go faster.

Hand in hand they step into the airlock, and Loki's feet are the last to ever touch Asgardian soil. The planet explodes in a rain of dust and rock. And although the Asgardians hug one another and cry out for their loss, to Tony it feels like a new beginning.


	22. Chapter 22

At some point in the hours since the battle, the Asgardians replaced the Chitauri crew. The Aesir's love of order and literal speech makes them pretty ideal for piloting a ship of this size, so it didn't take long to get up and running. The Sokovians are going to arrest him, as soon as they land on Earth, so his fate is sealed. He might get a few hours of peace while the governments squabble over jurisdiction and fax papers back and forth, but ultimately he's going to stand trial.

That's how Loki finds him—thoughtful, stargazing. It only takes a minute for him to start rocking on his heels. Tony soaks up the restless energy and doesn't acknowledge him. They have time for games, just now. Not very long, not nearly enough, but some. So he makes Loki wait.

"What are you looking at?" Loki asks.

"Space." he says, feigning ignorance. "Sorry, did you want something?"

An invisible hand smacks him in the ass. He doesn't make a noise, because they're on a platform in front of a hundred stodgy Asgardians and he still has his pride. But he does jump a bit and that's not cool.

"Did you just slap my ass?"

"Who, me?" Loki asks, affronted. Stone faced, but his punch line indicator goes off. A kind of tilt to his mouth that he either doesn't know about or can't suppress. It only comes out when he's fucking with someone. "Heavens, is there a molester on the loose? Someone ought to stop them."

Somehow, Loki does it again without even moving. And this time it stings. He makes a pointed scan of the roomful of Asgardians.

"We're in public, Slugger. You better check your attitude."

A cut-glass grin spreads over Loki's face. "Make me."

The instant he decides to play along, Loki bolts.

The bridge crew sends them scathing looks as they run through bays of workstations, laughing in Loki's case and apologizing in Tony's after they knock a pile of drives from a navigator's station. Angry voices call after them, and he finds he doesn't really care.

Loki's face is bold and elated as he tumbles down staircases and leaps from floating platforms with Tony hot on his heels. He almost falls to his death when he dives for Loki and passes right through an illusion. Fortunately a platform catches him a few feet below, but it's a near thing. Twisting down corridors and along curved transparent tubes, he chases Loki's elusive shadow. As he skids around one corner he nearly knocks down a cluster of Asgardian women and sends their skirts billowing.

"Pardon me, ladies. Sorry, excuse me-" he says, and when he comes out the otherside Loki's gone. Looking around, he spots the women again and his eyes catch a glimpse of dark hair.

"Nice try, princess!" he calls, sprinting toward the group and Loki looks over her shoulder in surprise.

Eventually he corners her in a dead end, and she darts through the only door in the hall. He expects a utility closet, but the room is more like a high end loft. An illusion dissipates just as he opens the door, leaving the real Loki sitting in his underwear beside a big, fancy chair.

"Welcome home, Mister Stark." he says, thumbs circling around each other. Eyeing the muted grey furnishings and onyx floors, he steps inside.

Geometric designs adorn the ceilings, and a large crimson-sheeted bed extends from one wall. Trust Loki to find a luxury apartment on a warship. Coming to a stop at Loki's side, he pets his hair and finds it damp, his skin warm from a bath.

"What is this?" he asks, charmed by this view of Loki; prim and proper on his little cushion. Not kneeling, because apparently there are things he doesn't need to be told twice.

"How was work?" Loki deflects, and isn't that a trip. Playing house? Something like that.

He points at the throne-like chair. "I take it that's for me?"

"If you wish."

 _If he wishes._ Isn't that nice. Half the people in the world would smell a rat if Loki crawled up to them and said that. And they'd be right. He sits.

Loki shuffles to sit at his feet, long fingers running up his legs and down to untie his shoes. The heavy soles land with a clop, right then left. Loki even sets them parallel and tucks in the laces like a shoe store clerk. Next, he pulls down his socks, pausing after each one to massage his sore feet, and Tony decides he's on board with whatever this is. It's nice just to rest.

"Work sucked." he says, honestly. Loki hums his agreement.

Opening a magic pocket between his hands, he reaches through. Something moves in the corner of Tony's eye. He looks just in time to see a bowl and several bottles disappear from a side table and fall into Loki's hands.

"Fancy."

"I've acquired a few new tricks." Loki says. He holds the bowl, concentrating, and his fingertips glow orange like flaring embers. The water steams, and he fishes out a pair of washcloths.

"Let's see if we can make your day better." Loki murmurs, wringing out the cloths and laying them over Tony's feet. The heat and the pressure feels divine, more so when Loki's hands return to rub at his arches.

"You're the best." he groans, sinking into the chair. A complacent smirk is the only answer he gets as Loki focuses, hands stroking over his heels and up the bottoms of his legs. The brush of fingers under his knees is disarming, stunningly intimate. Loki's thumbs play at the wrinkled fabric of his pants, and he grips the arms of the chair, unsure what to do. Shouldn't he be reciprocating somehow?

Loki smiles that strange, un-fussy grin and asks, "Is this alright, sir?"

He doesn't feel like he can say no. When was the last time Loki initiated? Not counting the helicarrier, because he refuses to include that. Loki's idea of seduction ranges from vague suggestions to jumping him in the shower and shoving a boner in his back until he does something about it, so it's hard to guess where this is going.

"You're doin' good." he says, noncommittal.

Loki doesn't catch his reservations. The press of strong thumbs down the tight muscles of his legs and feet coaxes out an indecent moan. He kisses Tony's knee and his heart stutters.

Receiving this kind of attention usually happens in the company of paid professionals. Doing it with a lover feels too close. Despite his newly minted status as an insatiable cuddle slut, this isn't something he's imagined. He didn't think Loki would be into it.

"What were you doing on the bridge?" Loki asks, unaware of his internal panic.

"I could ask you the same thing."

Loki tilts his head, knowing. Tony huffs.

"Shuttles." they both say.

If great minds think alike, then bad minds think exactly the same. They both already considered the options; pick up the boys and go back to Earth, or select a galaxy at random and run. Loki will want to run, obviously.

"Can I change your mind?" Loki asks, and again Tony's struck by how well they know each other. Inside out, warts and all.

 _You can certainly try_ is on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it.

False hope is a cruelty, not a kindness.

"No."

Loki's face tightens, but he doesn't pause in his strokes. Unfurling his fingers from the rounded edge of the armrest, Loki takes his hand and runs long, slow caresses from elbow to fingertip. Calloused pads graze his palm and he chokes around a surge of emotion he can't understand, let alone identify.

"What is this?" he asks again.

"You have needs I've neglected."

"We've talked about this-"

Loki kisses his knuckle, squeezing with both hands. "If you won't reconsider, then I will send you off whole and content."

Sincerity makes it that much harder. This isn't what he had in mind when he chased him down here. He rubs his temples. There's a burning behind his eyes that he can't blink away. The press of a familiar body straddling his hips makes it worse. He doesn't want to feel this, and he certainly doesn't want Loki to see it.

His partner washes his face with a clean cloth. It's kind, giving him an out. An excuse to have water dripping down the crease of his nose and shining on the corners of his eyes.

"There will be photographers, no doubt." Loki says thickly, "You need a shave."

"Are you offering?" he sniffs, rubbing at his eyes.

"If I didn't care as much for your opinion, I would insist."

He pokes Loki's scratchy cheek and smiles tightly. "You too."

"A trade, then." Loki agrees, wiping away each escaped tear without comment.

Holding the steaming towel over his beard, Loki reaches for the bottles he summoned earlier and uncorks one with his teeth. He holds it out for Tony to sample, and the hard to define scent of curtains and firewood graces his senses. Loki pours two drops on his hand and performs some kind of spell that makes the liquid bubble and expand.

The shift to more familiar ground helps. Still close, but with enough distance that he can save face a bit.

"What kind is that?" he asks, and feels silly when the towel turns his voice fuzzy and muffled.

Loki's expression softens as he works the foam into a lather. "Elderwood. My mother used it. Fortunately she was born of Vanaheim, or I would have to adapt myself to another fragrance."

"Lucky."

"You like it?"

He shrugs, pulling off the cooling cloth. "Smells like you."

Loki's ears go pink as he dabs cream over Tony's face. The light scrape of nails through his beard is refreshing, the scent bringing up pleasant memories of movie nights and puzzles on the dining table. That sort of stuff bored him until they came packaged with Loki, quiet and content in stretchy pants. His eyes close of their own volition.

"Relax." Loki says softly, tilting his head to the side and pinching the skin taut. The blade tingles, sweeping over delicate skin with confident skill. Deft passes lull him into a pleasant trance as Loki's strokes peel stress from his skin along with bristly whiskers. He feels entirely supported in those capable hands, laying still and turning his head in the direction his lover guides. Both cheeks come away clean and unmarred, and then Loki sets a hand to his chin.

"Time for your neck."

Tony blinks, confused by the interruption.

"Do you trust me?" Loki asks. What a silly question.

He bares his throat, closing his eyes and trying to slip back into that dreamy half-sleep. Loki doesn't continue.

Tony breathes. "Go on. Aren't you gonna make me pretty?"

Loki stares, eyes intense. Blank faced and hungry.

"I may just do that someday. You'd be appealing in eyeliner."

There are a dozen perfect comebacks to that, but the knife over his Adam's apple keeps him quiet. Hypnotic scrapes mark a steady rhythm, the lingering question giving the moment undo significance. Because he does trust Loki. He trusts him with a knife at his throat, but more than that he trusts Loki's words to create instead of destroy, and his hands to hold instead of squeeze. He knows those fingers could shatter bones and bleed fire, and he welcomes their touch all the same. What he has for this man-woman-Jotun-person-god transcends trust. It's faith. Pure, baseless belief that in the middle of his tempest of constant change, this person will always be Loki and Tony will always be safe because Loki loving Tony is now a fundamental state of the universe.

The last of the cream comes away with a schick, and Loki lowers the blade. Tony smiles, loopy and flush with affection.

"I'm gonna be inconsolable if my lines are crooked." he jokes, knowing sight unseen that it's good. Perfectionist doesn't even begin to describe Loki. Rubbing oil on the shaved skin, Loki combs his fingers through the newly sharp goatee.

"Then you are in for a rude awakening. The only razors in prison are single blade disposables."

"Are you trying to make me cry? Cause it's working. Look, I'm tearing up."

Loki snorts, whipping up another batch of foam and flicking a blob on Tony's nose.

"Hey-" he squirms, and Loki laughs, putting another dot on his cheek. They fumble around, foam flying all over them and the floor, until eventually he catches both Loki's wrists and pulls them together into one hand. Scraping up what's left of the cream on Loki's palm, he smears it on his face with a wet slap.

Those green eyes turn molten as he pulls half-heartedly at the grasp, and a flush creeps up his neck.

"That wasn't very nice." Tony says, low and teasing.

"Do you disapprove, Mister Stark?"

It's like their arms complete a circuit, energy passing between them from Loki's heated gaze to Tony's hammering pulse and back.

"I would approve of you putting these behind your back." he says, releasing Loki's hands and grabbing his hair instead. The answering whine is pretty gratifying, the hasty obedience even more so. He runs a hand up Loki's stomach, as fond as ever of his long, narrow happy trail and the dips between his ribs.

"Like this?" Loki asks, so low he's almost groaning.

"Arch your back more. Fuck, that's it. Pretty fucking boy."

"For you, sir." Loki breathes, grinding down. His chest curves out, putting those pert little nipples on display. Glassy eyes watch him line up the edge, so he figures he's doing something right. Loki's hips stutter, rubbing their lengths together in a way that's pleasant and far too distracting. He slaps him on the thigh.

"Hold still." he says.

The blade glides smoothly, making soft scruffing noises in the quiet room. Loki is a puddle by the end, body relaxed. Mimicking what was done to him, he soothes the irritated skin with drops of oil and admires the baby smooth skin.

"Good as new."

Loki nuzzles his hand like a cat, and he traces his neck to knead at stiff shoulders. Eventually he travels further down and pinches absently at his nipples until sitting still becomes a real challenge.

He could sit there feeling Loki breathe for hours, he really could. His partner humors him, even when his dick stiffens enough to tent his briefs. It becomes a game, Loki holding his elbows behind his back in a white knuckled grip and moaning at the increasingly firm slaps Tony gives him every time he loses control and thrusts.

Raking his nails down that muscular chest, Tony decides he's done messing around. He pulls down the elastic of Loki's underwear and and rubs at his-

Woah.

"You filthy little-"

Loki grins, cheeks flushed and eyes glinting.

"Where the hell did you get a butt plug in a spaceship?"

"I said I had things to pick up on Asgard." Loki says, faux innocent. So fucking proud of himself.

"You did not-"

"I have a special and intimate relationship with that prostate massager you could not possibly understand." Loki says indignantly, although he drops the act and grins when Tony throws his head back, cackling. Only Loki would stop in the middle of an apocalypse to fetch his sex toys.

"I can't believe you."

Loki doesn't respond to that, but his lips are louder than words anyway. He pulls Tony's shirt off with renewed enthusiasm and peppers his chest with kisses. The cool air gives him goosebumps, but Loki's attention is warm. He wishes they could sink into the ground and stay this way forever. It won't be long enough, nine hundred thousands sunrises or however many they have left.

Loki kisses a trail down his stomach until he's back on the floor and undoing Tony's fly. Conflicted pangs of desire and apprehension overtake him as he lifts his hips and allows him to rip his pants and underwear off.

Nails dance over his hips and thighs, and he tries not to look too hopeful. It's Loki's prerogative to say no, or at least that's what he repeats to himself over and over as his mind unhelpfully supplies drunken memories of the Last Blowjob. Capitalized like a book title because he genuinely believed there wouldn't be another one as long as he lived. Yet here he is, riding the wave of Loki's new devil-may-care outlook and trying not to stare as he wets his lips and pours oil on his hands.

"Last chance, Bambi." Tony murmurs, running a thumb over Loki's bottom lip. It's those damn lips that got him in this situation in the first place. So fucking pretty. "You're allowed to say no."

"I want it, sir."

He presses his thumb inside and Loki's eyes shutter closed. Images race through his mind, a mix of fantasy and anticipation as Loki bears down and sucks. Replacing his thumb with two fingers, he delves deeper, forcing Loki's mouth all the way open and admiring the hollow line of his cheeks as he pulls away. Fuck, he could cut himself slapping that face, all those sharp angles and sass.

Loki licks a slow trail up his leg, and he realizes someone has to be the adult here.

"What can I not do?" he asks, shaky around the tremors of sparkly-good feelings that threaten to override his rational mind.

Loki sighs, running a hand through his hair, "Don't move too much. And don't touch my head."

If he's anywhere near as good as Tony remembers, that will be a tough request. He sits on his hands just in case, willing to look ridiculous in the name of not ruining this.

"What if I-" he clears his throat, "Where do you, uh, want it?"

Loki sniffs, nostrils flaring. "I swallow under exactly two circumstances, Stark. Your birthday or a death in the family."

"Pearl necklace, got it."

"Although it is nearly Christmas…" Loki says, and smirks when Tony's dick jumps. "I suppose I will make an exception."

The slide of his mouth is, indeed, exceptional. Hot and teasing as he kisses up the shaft and gets everything slick with his oily hands. His tongue is a thing of genius, licking mesmerizing circles while his hands twist and stroke. Not going deep, but making up for it with sheer technique. Loki's eyes flick up to meet his, lips stretched and swollen and completely evil. The image might be burned into his retinas, so sinfully hot that he can picture horns growing out of Loki's forehead. Piercing and elongating until he looks like the twisted little devil he is, sucking and moaning like Tony's cock is fucking ambrosia.

He's on the edge in a matter of minutes, hips twitching and fingers clenched into the tufted fabric of the chair. Loki pulls away, hands stroking slowly. Fuck, he's so close, fucking damn it.

"Good, sir?" Loki asks, as if it isn't fucking obvious. As if he could possibly string together a response with Loki's fingers doing that.

"Uh huh." he pants, intelligently. "You?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I am thinking." Loki says, sitting back on his heels.

"Now?" Tony asks, nearly laughing in the middle of groaning. Loki bites his hip.

"This used to be a chore, with Angr."

That sobers his humor much more than the bite. His expression must be pitiful, because Loki huffs and continues jacking him off like a shake weight. The gasp is not very dignified, but it does seem to calm Loki's irritation, so he'll call that a net positive.

"H-How-" _fuck that's nice, shit, fucking_ "How so?"

Licking him base to tip, Loki sucks him down and pulls off with a pop. He must decide he likes that, because then he does it again and Tony sees stars.

"They disliked 'topping', as you would say. I had to earn it. At first it was fun. A challenge. Occasionally a fight, if that's what it took. But in time… I hated it."

"Is now really the time for this?" Tony winces, apologetic but also entirely serious.

Loki gives him a particularly good stroke. "But you're already so close, darling. We'll have to wait anyway."

"I'm never gonna calm down if you keep-" _oh shit, don't come, don't come, don't fucking-_

Loki eases off all the way this time, rubbing up his hips and down his legs in soothing loops while he gasps and his dick leaks precome. It's fantastic, overwhelming, and also unmitigated torture. Of course Loki would have a talent for this, it's everything good and bad he can do to a man in one act. He rests his head on Tony's knee and gazes up at him, lips tinged pink and eyes vague.

"I understand that I have no obligation to do this." Loki's brows lower as he fumbles for the right words. "I always thought there was something very wrong with me for… for wanting what I do."

Tony sits up. Loki stops him with a look.

"What I'm trying to say is that I'm grateful, sir. All my life I've been the person I needed to be, and you make me someone else. I don't know who that is, I don't know why I want these things, but sitting here, doing this… I feel I can find out."

He's speechless. Completely stunned.

Of all things, the helicarrier comes to mind. Not the one in Sokovia, the original. Loki in a cell and Romanov telling him _love is for children._ At the time it struck him as a good line, sitting on the lab table poking the Hulk and munching on blueberries like he owns the world. Like he isn't about to see destruction on an unprecedented scale.

 _Love is for children_ , what a fucking lie. Children are greedy, self-centered little monsters. They take and take and take until they don't need you anymore, and that's good. That's how helpless things survive. Love is the opposite. It captures every moment of weakness, every thoughtless word, and beats you over the head with them until you grow up and get over yourself. Until you're up at four in the morning staring at the city through the window and wondering _why did I say that, why didn't I do something, why why why._

Love isn't for children, because it fucking hurts. It doesn't tolerate excuses, and it doesn't accept second place. It makes you hope and dream and wonder why you can't ever be good enough. Until one day you are, and you have this complicated, confusing, deeply fucked up person begging to suck your dick because words aren't enough. Because you're everything to each other, and at the same time you're two different people who can't ever seem to sync up.

He pulls Loki into his lap, and answers with a kiss that could raise the dead. He so full of sensations that don't have words attached to them, and for once he knows Loki is just the same. They have it in common, this need to pass feelings directly, skin to skin. Emotional osmosis, the natural transmission of molecules until a solution reaches equilibrium.

He throws Loki's underwear so hard that they might achieve zero G before landing on a lampshade. His partner snickers into his shoulder, until he starts playing with the plug and the chuckles turn into gasps.

"Had this all planned out didn't you, Slugger?" he growls, easing the plug out and letting it drop back in.

Loki's breath catches. "For you, sir."

All for him. Ain't that a fucking peach. The plug comes all the way out this time, immediately replaced by two fingers. Loki's loose, already slicked up and ready to go. Filthy, gorgeous boy. He goes ham with the oil, just fucking slathers it everywhere. There's no such thing as too much. He lines himself up, pressing at Loki's crease for the tease.

"How long until we leave for Jotunheim, pretty boy?" he asks, kneading Loki's ass and practically gushing precome.

"T-two hours, thereabouts." Loki pants.

He slides in, gripping Loki's hips hard and trembling from the effort to not go too fast.

"And-" _shit, fuck, jesus fucking_ "H-how long do we need to steal a shuttle?"

Loki trembles, sinking down. "Twenty minutes."

Sliding his hands up his lover's back, he gets one in his hair and kneads his ass with the other.

"So the question is-" He pulls Loki down until he's buried deep. "How many times do you think you can come in an hour and a half?"

Loki bites his lip and smiles with all his teeth.

The new record is twelve, but Loki insists it's twenty, because each Jotun-gasm counts for two. Frankly, that's just needlessly inflating the numbers. Who cares if it's inside and outside at the same time, it still only counts as one.

Tony's laying on singed sheets. Euphoric, sweaty, and really craving a scotch. Some things don't change, apparently.

Loki is sprawled out under him, blowing smoke rings out his mouth like a madman. A heads-up about the fire thing would have been nice. Then again it was pretty goddamn metal, fucking a guy so good he started sparking like a Zippo.

The brand around his wrist hurts like a bitch, even after Loki healed it, but the half circle of runes makes him feel whole. It's a part of his body now, like the suit's implants, and the scars that remind him of all the hard lessons he's learned. They can take his clothes, his weapons, and the ring he plans to buy later today, but the prison can't take this.

Lacing their fingers, he rests his head on Loki's chest and admires how his lover's band of 'Tony Stark' completes the circle. So sappy, what the hell happened to them? They used to be so edgy and cool.

Pointed nails run through his hair and he gets tingles all down his back.

"Hypothetically-" he says, trailing off.

Loki blinks down at him, lip quirked in a dopey sex-hazed leer.

"Yes, love?"

"If you had one day of freedom left, and you'd already fucked a super sexy demigod, what would you do?"

Loki cocks his head. "Well, to start, I would call Fury from an untraceable number and ask which fetish site supplied his wardrobe."

They start, like any self-respecting rebels, with dessert. Peach cobbler and apple pie, funnel cakes and milkshakes. Churros from the sidewalk and eclairs from the Michelin star patissier that cost fourteen dollars each. Tony's jaw is so sore he has to pass on the fudge, and Loki apologizes with donuts in the shape of Stark Tower. It's a fitting beginning to the end, because the brats don't even realize what an indulgence it is. They've never walked a sidewalk before, or felt the breeze kick up from passing taxis. Every little thing is a first time, and he counts each wide eyed stare as a victory.

Clothes shopping is less fun, but mostly because Hela's offended by the gender divide. Dodging the security cameras is pretty tedious until Loki solves both problems at once by turning Tony into a lady. Stilettos are not nearly as sexy when they're cutting off his pinky toes and threatening to topple him like a tower of Jenga blocks. He buys a very comfortable pair of boots instead and has to check his privilege when the cashier hands Loki the receipt. Maybe Hela has a point.

Once everyone is decked out in new duds, Tony realizes it's fucking Christmas Eve and he has three kids. They hit F. A. O. Schwartz like the criminals they are—with diligence and decadence. Top floor to bottom, with a long break at the giant piano because he had to know if Jori could play every note at once in his snake form. He totally can, although it might have scarred the other children. He owns a quarter of the store by the time they leave, but the kids are elated, even Hela. Tony's card is frozen when they get to the cashier, so Loki pays with gold bricks and dumps a handful of rings in the charity box.

Now firmly in the holiday mood, he drags them all to the big Christmas tree, and makes them talk to Santa Claus in Macy's. Fenrir pulls the poor bastard's fake beard off and tells him he wants a cat for Christmas. The cheeky wolfling watches cat videos like normal people watch food porn, so Tony counts it a lucky break when the fat man doesn't notice Fenrir licking his chops. On the way out, he swears they're being followed, but he can't pick out any particular suspects. The uneasy feeling doesn't abate, even when they teleport all the way to Brooklyn.

After all that excitement Loki is done with crowds and noise. He's been pretty tolerant of Tony's festive spirit, so he opts for a more introvert friendly destination. The Chinese Garden is peaceful, and frigid, which makes it the perfect place for young Jotun to turn blue and scare the shit out of superstition spinsters. A bench sits beside the frozen pond, flanked by charming rock sculptures and perfectly maintained bushes. It reminds him of a different bench by a different pod, and he doesn't have the strength to argue when Loki says his butt hurts and sits down. Jori's asleep on his hip anyway. Might as well.

"You look cold." Tony says.

He adjusts Jori so he's laying across both their laps, and Loki covers him with the tail of his coat.

"We're in public." Loki replies, ears pink and nose dripping.

A couple of geezers in duckbill hats are feeding the fish. Other than that it's a ghost town.

He points. "Think we'll ever look like that?"

It's not the answer Loki was expecting. He leans over and looks, really obviously. One of the old farts notices and fucking smiles. Waves. Happy people confound him.

"At the present rate of catastrophe, it is statistically improbable."

Gloves make hand holding different. Squishy. He's never tried it. Nobody was allow to hold his hand in the past, thanks to the paparazzi and his own aversion to attachment. And of course Loki was busy being king when the first cold fronts blew through.

"I hope we do." Tony says.

"It will be a very, very long wait."

"That's okay too." he whispers. His nose is frozen, and so is Loki's when he pecks him on the cheek.

The old men stroll towards them, one looking concerned and the other looking vacant, maybe senile.

"'Scuse me, ma'am, I don't mean ta bother ya, but is that your kid in the lake?"

It takes a second to realize he's still female, and the man is talking to him. Then another one to look in the water and spot Fenrir chasing fish, blue as Picasso's period.

"Nope." he says, although Jori's asleep in his lap, also blue.

"Never seen him before." Loki agrees, and the old men have no choice but to go report a monster sighting to the staff.

Fenrir realizes he's too slow as a real boy and turns into a wolf. It's kind of funny, watching him bite the water over and over. Eventually Hela turns into a hawk and drops a porkulent koi at his feet with a proud squawk.

"Your kids are something else." he says. Loki turns blue and rolls up his pants.

"I've noticed they are only _my children_ when they're misbehaving."

Dragging Fen out by the scruff seems pretty effective until Security calls the police. On the plus side, the kid eats the evidence while they're running. He cracks a dad joke about Chinese take out, and Loki rolls his eyes so hard he's afraid they might fall out.

This time, when he gets the being-watched feeling he's ready. Spinning on his heel, he gets a glimpse of a big dude in a ball cap. The next moment the bastard's gone. From then on he assumes they're being watched and tells Loki to drop the spell. Not much point parading around in a too-big suit if his cover's been blown anyway.

Google shows a row of mom and pop shops down the street, so Loki drags the soggy-shoed brats inside a pretentious looking boot boutique with remarkable dignity. Tony's kicking snow off his boots when a big man in a Dodgers cap walks past, close enough to brush his shoulder. He whips around, only to recognize the walk. Square shoulders and a confident stride. Big hands stuffed in the pockets of a bomber jacket.

Rogers glances over his shoulder, and steps into the shop next door. Two choices, the white door or the brown one. For all their beefs, he still doesn't know if Steve prefers mountains or beaches. A gold bell rings when he steps inside.

It's a hat shop. Dark wood with built-in displays like the bespoke suit parlors his Dad used to take him to. Now he has that shit delivered, but he's not immune to nostalgia. A well made hat is one of life's purest joys, even if he usually doesn't get to wear the ones he likes. Celebrities get baseball caps and wide brim panamas, not sharp side-eye worthy belfries.

Steve is trying on a fedora, of course. The shop attendant glances up from her magazine and Tony waves her off. He snags a grey trilby from a stand and holds it out.

"Trust me, you do not want to know what a fedora stands for these days." he says, "Not all classics age well."

Steve tips the brim of the fedora forward and meets Tony's eye in the mirror.

"Fashion's cyclical. It'll come around."

"You always did look good in an antique." Tony replies, slipping the trilby on himself and twisting his lip. "I dunno, is it me?"

"The brim's a little bent."

"That's the point, that's what makes it a… you know what, nevermind. Let's cut to the chase. I'm not planning on resisting arrest, or making a mess, or anything. I'm going in quietly, so you can tell that cute agent behind the counter and all her friends to put their guns away."

"Tony, this isn't what you think-"

"Listen, I get it. You're in a tough spot, politics are politics. It's not personal-"

"That's, uh, remarkably mature, but-"

"Can you listen? I'm kinda putting myself out here. I mean, really, I feel like we have this... animosity and, and, and tension, and I want you to know that I'm not offended-"

"I'm not here to arrest you." Steve interrupts, hasy and clearly confused.

Tony blinks. "Wait, what?"

"I'm not. This whole situation makes me uncomfortable. The accident, the Accords." Steve shakes his head, working his jaw. "I think you got a real short straw, and I absolutely don't stand by this idea that an organization will make a better choice on the ground than you or I can."

"Hang on, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Not that you're right-"

Tony grins, "Oh, you definitely were."

Steve sighs. "I'm saying that I'm here to help you escape. Go to ground."

The news washes over him with a ripple of disbelief. He swaps the trilby for a fedora of his own, a nice black felt with a tapered front. Temptation eats at him as he checks himself out. If not for the faint bruise on his cheek and the heavy lines under his eyes, he'd look pretty much back to normal. Loki did a damn fine job.

"Are you actually offering to break a rule for me?" Tony asks, only partially joking.

"Respecting authority doesn't mean I can't tell when the authority's corrupt."

"I'm-" he searches for a word, and maybe it's a bad sign that he hears Loki in his voice when he answers, "Honored?"

"And for what it's worth, I'd do the same for Loki. I didn't realize you two were… close."

 _We're queer, Steve,_ he can't help but think. _Just say it. It's not an airborne pathogen._ He leaves it unsaid. If nothing else, Hela's well meaning but dogged pursuit of social justice instilled a healthy respect for tolerance. It's not like he knew any of this crap six months ago.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do." he says, and Steve meets his eye in the mirror again. He looks surprised, in a subdued always-on-the-job kind of way. Right, sincerity. He used to be allergic to that. Too late to take it back. "But I had a chance to run. Didn't take it."

"You didn't mean to hurt anybody. You saved Clint and Natasha, probably hundreds of civilians. There are dozens of cases against you. There's even talk of combining the claims into a war tribunal. Stark, we're talking about the rest of your life."

He rubs at his eyes, suddenly exhausted. "It doesn't matter. See, this is our problem, you and me, you're all about good intentions. It doesn't matter why I did it, people got hurt. I could have saved them from the other side of the shuttles. I didn't need to run in guns blazing."

"You couldn't have known." Steve argues, and Tony feels his energy slipping.

"Look, I get that you don't get it, but I got a lot on my conscience I can't erase. This I can."

Steve takes off his fedora, pinching the brim between his fingers. Tony follows suit, hanging his hat back on the rack.

"People died. Their families deserve to know why. And between you and me, I'm not gonna look a day older when I walk outta there."

Steve lowers his brows in a quizzical look. Tony smirks, edging on a shit-eating-grin. "Perks of sleeping with a god."

Steve shake his head, returning his hat to the shelf. "Deal with the devil and he'll burn you every time."

"Yeah, but he does this flicky thing with his tongue that is just mesmerizing."

"I… did not need to know that."

"Tell the Feds I'll meet 'em at Mac's Five & Diner. Nine sharp." Tony calls over his shoulder, the shop's bell ringing as a cold wind blows in from the street.

"You're a real son of a bitch, Stark."

"Thanks!" he calls with a jaunty wave, although his feet are heavy in his shoes.

Down the line of gleaming buildings and silhouetted street signs, the sun hangs low. The breeze chaps his face in seconds as he tips his head to check inside the neighboring shop. The kids are all trying on shoes, running between mirrors and tugging on Loki's sleeves. He looks stressed, drastically outnumbered and pulled eight different directions. At the same time there's a tranquil quality to his demeanor, a grace with which he handles the madness that Tony doesn't think he'll ever possess.

Pride wells up, and he figures Loki will have to get used to it anyway. In the meantime, he has one more stop to make before they sit the godlings down for their very own Last Supper. The jeweler seems to doubt his honesty at first, but when the gold rings come out he wraps up Tony's purchase real fast.

Money can't buy love, but it can buy a diner cleared of bystanders at what would normally be the dinner rush. It can buy a table for seven with one of those jukeboxes that play eight different versions of Blue Suede Shoes. It also buys everything on the menu, which is useful for feeding a herd of aliens with bottomless appetites.

Vinyl chairs and pink neon lights make the flickering overhead lights feel like a charming slice of Americana, but there's no excusing the Elvis statue or the buzzing flies. The pancakes are killer though, soaked in syrup and slathered in real, full fat, heart-clogging butter.

Between Thor and the eight legged horse, the far end of the table is fully occupied. They're plowing through a massive stack of pancakes each, leaving famine and decimation in their wake. The boys sit in the middle, getting eggs everywhere that Hela seems to think are hir job to clean up. Ze's projecting palpable disappointment, making frequent trips to the garbage, and apologizing to the staff for the broken plates.

Of course that leaves Loki snug by his side, picking at a chicken fried steak and sipping bitter Lipton tea like all the answers to life are written at the bottom of the mug. They're perilously low on time, the sky fully dark through the windows. Pedestrians on the sidewalk amble past, anonymous shadowy figures lit only by changing street lights and the blaring white of a laundromat across the street.

The ring box is burning a hole in his pocket, but the fries convince him to sit back in his chair and watch the family circus.

"It's eight thirty." Loki says, setting his fork on his plate and wringing a paper napkin under the table.

"Yeah." Tony replies, "I… This was a great day."

"It was."

Loki's stiff upper lip does things to him. It makes him really, really want to change his mind. His lover's hand twists and twists at the napkin, shredding it one revolution at a time, and he puts his hand on his knee.

"There will be more great days. Lots more."

"Not for a long time." Loki sighs, and he can't argue. It's true.

He stops Loki's rampant napkin destruction with a touch, and their eyes meet. "Those rules still apply, even if I'm not dead. I want you to stay busy. Live your life."

"You are my life. I'm not what I once was, I'm just… me. On Earth."

"Sounds like we need to get you a hobby."

"Oh yes, clearly what I am lacking is a fanatical obsession with cross-stitch."

"Or, you know, macrame-"

"My sole talents include biting insults and self fulfilling prophecies." Loki mutters.

"You could right horoscopes?"

Loki brushes off his hand and tosses the ruined napkin on his half-finished plate.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

He grabs him by the back of the shirt.

"Tony-"

"Stay." he says softly, "Come on, it's late."

"I'm sorry, is my distress inconvenient for you?" Loki snaps.

Tony sighs. "Let's not fight."

His lover slumps in his chair, a muscle working in his jaw.

"There aren't any people walking past the windows." Loki says.

He twists around to check. Across the four lane street the sidewalks are crowded, but not a soul passes the diner windows for as long as he looks.

"Setting up a perimeter." he agrees, reaching into his pocket. He grips the box, and still he can't find the words. Fucking language. "Come on, help me pick out a pie."

Loki obeys with a sour look, which he ignores. The stroll to the teal and magenta counter is measured, the diner unsettling with it's empty chairs and hastily reset tables. The kitchen clatters with the distant sounds of a busboy washing dishes. He leans into Loki's side and threads their fingers, momentarily hypnotized by the tower of pies, lit up like heaven and spinning around the display case like a carousel of diabetes.

Cherry red menus litter the counter beside a dimple-cheeked mascot girl, and it's all so fucking sad. An overdone theme park of a restaurant frozen forever in a bizarre imitation of an era that probably sucked for the people that lived it. A temple to backwards thinking, idolizing a 'simpler' time that was really just McCarthyist conformity taken to its logical extreme. His family would have been either a lab experiment or a story at pray-the-gay-away camp. Still could be, if they aren't careful.

He clutches the ring box in his pocket and wonders how stupid this will all seem in a few hundred years. So much worry and stress over such a simple thing. Two people drawn and repelled by each other like opposite poles of a magnet. Always pulled but never, ever in sync. He pries the box open and feels around until he thinks it's facing the right direction.

Loki turns to him, face drawn and serious.

"May I kneel, sir?" he asks, and Tony's brain does a hard reboot. The ring stays in his pocket.

He looks over his shoulder at the table full of aliens. "Here?"

"Nothing untoward." Loki promises, "May I?"

"Uh, sure."

Dropping to his knees with all the grace of a ballet dancer, Loki kisses his hand and does that wrist flick thing. A rumpled plastic wrapper crinkles in his hand and he rips it open. Smirking, he presents a shiny, red, razzleberry ring pop.

"Will you marry me, Mr. Stark?"

Tony laughs, too loud in the nearly abandoned restaurant.

"You're so fucking crazy." he snickers, and Loki blushes.

"Well?"

His fiance is nervous although he can't fathom why. There's only one answer.

"You're so damn lucky I already bought us real ones." he says, pulling the box out of his pocket. Loki admires the simple gold bands.

"I love you." he whispers. Tony's stomach is full of butterflies like a kid with a crush, it's ridiculous. He can't believe they are doing this in a diner under an honest-to-god crochet portrait of the Blues Brothers, but at the same time it's completely expected. They never do anything slow, or proper, or in clothes that aren't soggy and splattered with mud.

Accepting the candy ring, he smiles and slips it on his pinky. He can't even get it past his first knuckle, and that's kind of perfect.

A siren sounds on the empty street outside, and the room turns alternating shades of red and blue. He nudges Loki to his feet and holds the smaller of the two rings between his thumb and forefinger.

"Better hurry up." he says, turning his hand so they're palm to palm and Loki's fingers are hovering. His sleeve rides up from the motion and Tony can just make out his own name scabbed over his wrist.

"Quickly." Loki agrees, wiggling his fingers. The ring slides smoothly, resting handsomely between his knuckles. He'll probably need an enchantment for when he shifts. For now, he's proud of himself just for getting the size-of-the-day right.

Flipping their hands, Loki pulls out the other ring and slips it on Tony's finger. They aren't anything special, just plain traditional bands, but the sight of their hands bearing matching rings and matching marks is captivating all the same. Loki pulls him into a kiss, the ring a welcome spot of cold metal on the back of his neck. He slips the candy ring in Loki's pocket. He's not going to get a change to eat it.

The doors crash open behind his back, the room bathed in beaming searchlights as Rogers and Romanov burst in leading a team of agents. Tony raises his hands, although it takes Loki a long couple of seconds to separate.

"Don't forget to write." Tony says, as two armored Marshalls jerk his hands behind his back. "Hey, easy on the coat, this was a gift-"

"There's kids here." Rogers says, disapproving, and the men's grips loosen slightly. Not because the kids, he would bet. Because the order came from Rogers. That's why he has issues with authority, that shit right there.

Jori yells from across the room, and he's caught off-guard by a weight crashing into his leg. He expects the baby adder, but it's actually Fenrir looking fierce and unhappy. Loki tries to pull the kid away, and Tony leans forward. The Marshalls try to stop him, so he pulls them along like a dog on a leash.

"Why won't you stay?" Fen scowls, fighting his dad with real hurt on his face. At the table, Hela holds Jori in much the same way, and he feels like he's going through a meat grinder.

"Be good, kid. Be nice to Jori. Listen to your dad." he says, keeping it together by the skin of his teeth. His kids aren't going to see him break, he won't let them.

The Marshalls try to drag him, and he goes along with it. He doesn't want a charge of resisting arrest on top of everything else. Loki's face is pained as he holds Fenrir in his arms and watches them take him away.

"You too, Slugger." he shouts, heavy hands pushing him out into the cold. "You be good or I'll find out. I have ways."

Reporters crowd along the police barrier, a mass of bodies all scrambling for their big break. Fame's a funny thing. Being hated, being loved, in the end it's all the same. He's not a person once he's in the viewfinder, he's a commodity. Always has been.

Loki flips him the bird with his ring finger, a spot of brilliant gold in the faux happiness of the diner, framed by grimy glass doors and neon lights. He rips the cuffs out of the officers hands and the crowd goes berserk, running away and running to.

He lifts them as high as he can behind his back and raises his own ring finger in return. Finally, they did it. They're a matched set. Partners in crime. His fiance smirks, laughing even as tears run down his cheeks, and that's the last thing he sees before he's blinded by flashbulbs.

Immortalized in half-tone grey, the newspapers flood the streets with his paper face, his finger raised proudly in protest of the world at large. Grim and defiant with a Mona Lisa quality to his eyes that the Times describes as 'beatific' and that style blogs call 'roguish.' He isn't either of those, of course. Real life isn't as poetic as people want it to be.

In reality he's cold. He's relieved, afraid, momentarily blind, and maybe when they shove him in the back of a police car with a metal cage in the middle it dawns on him just how dehumanizing prison is going to be. Ultimately, it doesn't matter because nobody cares. His face sells papers, and the good men of the law go home to tell their wives.

In the flash between one picture and the next they catch a frame that makes him look simultaneously handsome and pathetic. A hero and a sinner, and in that expression the readers see themselves.

Everybody forgets. Reporters find new philanthropists and politicians find new billionaires. Outside of retrospective features every five years or so, the name Tony Stark doesn't mean shit, and life moves on.

He tosses his battered copy of the article on the desk in the corner of the prison classroom and crosses his arms.

"...and that's how I saved the world, got arrested, came out of the closet, and announced my engagement in one day." he says, pausing for effect. "So to those of you who signed up for this class just to hear that story, the course withdrawal forms are on the back table, and exit surveys are on the right. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."

Eighteen of the twenty-one inmates stand up, a couple of them shooting him glares that promise revenge. They can fucking try. He'll have them strung up by their proverbial pursestrings the next time they want so much as a Tic-Tac from the commissary. Twenty five years of favors and alliances make him pretty much untouchable.

The crowd filters out the steel reinforced door, leaving him with the three students who possess an actual desire to improve themselves. He's about to check their name tags against his enrollment sheet when a movement in the hallway draws his attention. A guard he doesn't recognise stops in the doorway, hands at his side and sharp eyes alert. Green. The ginger man quirks a crooked smile, continuing down the hall with a kind of ease no employee of the corrections system possesses.

His heart skips, and he nearly drops his papers. "Actually, that's all I've got for today. We'll start the course material tomorrow, same time. Class dismissed."

The men give him suspicious looks, slowly scraping their chairs back.

He waves them out. "Go on, scram. If anybody stops you, send 'em my way."

In the second floor hallway between the classrooms and the hair salon there's a utility closet conveniently located in a blind spot between security cameras. It's the only private space in the entire prison, christened "Little Heaven" by the Armenians, which is both revolting and completely accurate. He ducks in so eagerly that he almost knocks Loki into a shelf of cleaning products. The glamour drips off like water.

"Hey, stranger." he says, breathless, practically hopping on the balls of his feet.

"Hello, love."

"Tell me nobody died."

"Not this week." Loki says, which is depressingly specific. The fact is, at sixty-nine years young, Tony's friends and associates are looking pretty frail. Even Parker's got a pack of ankle biters these days, and that more than anything makes him feel ancient.

"Hela sneaking out again? I can call-"

Loki gives him a puzzled frown. "Have you mistaken the date?"

Actually, he has no clue. It all blends together in prison, more and more each year. Days and months don't mean much on an eighty year sentence. Or, okay, thirty-eight fourteen month sentences. His teaching schedule is the only reason he knows it's not Friday, and therefore not the usual time for a clandestine meeting.

Loki lays a hand on his wrist, and his touch is so soft and warm it blocks out all other thought. His skin aches after so many years in here, a seemingly unquenchable thirst for human contact. Haircuts are like massages used to be. Just holding Loki's hand feels like an overwhelming indulgence.

His fiance guides him to the filthy floor that stopped bothering them years ago, and he sets his briefcase flat, unclipping the latches. He lifts the lid toward himself so Tony can't see and waves his hand around inside it. Flickering light glows from within and he turns the case around.

Tony's breath hitches, his khaki scrubs glowing orange from the light of far too many candles. Stilted lettering is almost visible under the blazing inferno of melting wax, and the white icing is smeared on one side from obvious swipes of little fingers.

"Happy Birthday, Mr. Stark." Loki says, blinking back tears and spreading his lips in a self-effacing smile that's become more and more at home on his face.

"It can't be May already-"

Loki bites his lip, brows pinched. "You really ought to try and stay current. Do you even know what year it is?"

"2040." he says, immediately. Days and months don't mean anything, but years he tracks with absolute focus. Fifty-five left to go, eligible for parole in fifteen. Years are all that keep him going. Loki's eyes soften, and he blinks the moisture from his eyes.

"Go on, or we'll be eating wax instead of sugar."

There's more than just cake. The sides of the briefcase are lined with foil wrapped burritos, which he immediately recognizes from his favorite hole-in-the-wall establishment in L.A. Photos of the kids line the lid, each of them a little older and dressed a little weirder than the last time he saw them. There's an AARP card from Steve with a winky face and _Welcome to the old man's club!_ written on the back. And a stack of Metamucil packets from Rhodey. An old fashioned Hallmark card has Bruce's increasingly shaky writing on the envelope, and there's a space next to it where Pepper's gift would be, if life was fair.

Loki wipes at Tony's cheek and he realizes he's leaking again, goddamnit.

"Make a wish, love."

He holds Loki's wrist, fingers grazing over the bumps of his own name.

"I can't think of anything." he says, losing himself in Loki's kind eyes and soft smile.

"Then wish for more of the same."

He closes his eyes, and blows.


	23. Christmas, 2043

Christmas in prison is just another day. The charity workers try, bless their optimistic little hearts, but it's a lost cause. Despite the dollar store tinsel and the cookies that arrive cracked in half from an obligatory drug screening, it's the same drab cinder block building with the same shady characters inside.

Most of the inner city crooks only get to see their crack babies during the holidays, so when the cute little urchins go home the guys always look a strange mix of unburdened and miserable. Worse off are the twenty-five to lifers who don't get visitors at all aside from the occasional bleeding heart liberal looking to ease their white guilt.

Tony can't say he blames the families. His own visits make him feel like pond scum and everytime he swears he won't put them through it again, but he's too selfish. He can't bear to not see the monsters, even if the guards give them nightmares and the prison staff make jokes about _apples not falling far from trees_.

Needless to say, he isn't fond of the holidays. He hates the fake cheer and the Santa hats and the unwelcome memories of his last day with the rugrats. The candy and cigarettes that get passed around are cold comfort in the freezing conditions of the cell block, and the one night of decent food donated by the local Catholic church only highlights how inhumane their usual meals are.

Not to mention the month long loop of sappy Christmas movies in the rec room, the morals of which are inevitably ' _isn't it awesome to eat delicious home-made food in our lovely suburban homes surrounded by people who love us while you sorry bastards rot in a smelly, overcrowded, roach-infested cage?'_

But this year is going to be different. He's not going to get high off his celly's marijuana like last year (terrible), or get drunk on prison hooch like the year before that (worse), or lock himself alone in his bunk mourning Pepper like the year before that (the absolute worst).

He's young, he's got people that love him, and he has a long life ahead of him when he gets out. Compared to most of the maniacs that share his block, he's got no reason to feel sorry for himself. Within the considerable limits of the prison system, he's going all out.

Step one takes about a week of monopolizing the payphone, but eventually he finds a New York City travel agent who's overeducated and underpaid enough to answer his call, even though it starts with a charming introduction from the Sokovian Department of Corrections.

From there it's not too hard to arrange a family cruise across the Mediterranean, mostly because the agent knows he's not going to pay for the $280 collect call unless she takes his business. Paying the bill without a credit card would be dicey under normal circumstances, but Tony has a photographic memory and a creeping suspicion that Loki hasn't changed his PIN in twenty-seven years.

He's right, of course, which is both a godsend and a troubling indication of Loki's failure to grasp the intricacies of digital security. He has the tickets delivered by a singing messenger on Thanksgiving, and then there's nothing to do but wait. And wait. And wait.

After a week goes by with no word, he gets concerned. After two he gets an ulcer. After three he gets the Malibu answering machine.

"You've reached the Stark household," Loki's cool recorded voice drawls, "Piss off."

Tony hangs up too hard, and sighs when the handset comes away cracked. That's coming out of his charge account, no doubt. They'll probably take twice what it's worth and pocket the rest while they're at it. Grinding his teeth he swipes his ID again and dials Loki's cell, knowing the inbox is full and deciding to try anyway. The usual minute and a half of dial tones passes, and then the long drone of a voicemail box.

"This is the Law Auspices of Loki Liesmith. Please be advised that we are not taking new cases at this time. Clients may use my private number in case of emergency, everybody else piss off."

Loki screens his calls at work, the pre-recorded message isn't necessarily a bad sign.

"Babe?" he scans the mold-stained ceiling and grimey windows of the call center. "It's me. Just wondering how you're doing. Hoping I might catch you...Guess I'll try tomorrow. Hug the brats for me."

He stays on the line a long time. Holding his breath, unable to hang up. Static buzzes in the ear piece. His stomach twists itself in knots and tells himself not to be disappointed. Another few seconds pass and the line goes dead.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he slumps forward and sets the handset in the cradle. A niggling paranoia eats at his calm, but he has to move along. There's a line of guys waiting in the hall, one or two heckling him with indistinct insults, and he knows he has to vacate the telephone if he doesn't want to start shit with the gangbangers.

When he gets to his cell it is regrettably occupied.

"Hey, brotha." his cellmate greets, picking lint out of his belly button with a pair of tweezers improvised from an apple sauce lid and a rubber band. Tony tries not to throw up in his mouth as he sheds his sweater and throws it over the top of the toilet.

Andre Jasha is what the warden calls an at risk youth. 'At risk' meaning, in his experience, an unfortunate combination of incurably stupid and childishly gullible. Despite his intimidating frame and love of death metal, Jasha is about as threatening as a rabbit in a baby stroller. Hence ttheir cohabitation. Apparently nobody else on the block could be trusted to bunk the baby-faced pacifist without murder-izing him, sodomizing him, or both. On days like this, he can see why.

Observing his celly's dubious dexterity, Tony rubs at the dry skin under his beard.

"Can you not do that in the bed?"

"Do what?"

"That, chuckle fuck." Tony waves at the tweezers and the lint. "We talked about this."`

"Well where else am I s'pposed to do it? I can't go out in the yard with this." Jasha says in his bizarrely accented English, waving the pair of tweezers in the air. He apparently did two terms at NYU, and it shows. He talks like an announcer at Eurovision that occasionally sprinkles in Harlem hood slang so he can sound more hip and metropolitan.

"These." Tony corrects on rote.

"Who shit in your soup, Princeton?"Jasha snorts a laugh through his perpetually clogged nose.

Tony has to take a deep breath to keep it together. That stupid nickname gets him every time.

He didn't even go to Princeton, but these Europeans don't know New Jersey from their assholes. They love to laugh at Tony's fuzzy European geography, but if he ever bothered to ask he's sure none of them could name a state other than Texas, California, or New York. Regardless, the geniuses of Kryonopich Federal Prison seem to have unanimously decided to stick him with that stupid moniker, and there's sadly no appeals process for prison logic.

"I dunno, Pork Chop, it's Christmas Eve. Who do you think shat in my fucking soup?" Tony holds his arms out as far as the four foot room allows and indicates the prison industrial complex at large. Maybe he's being dramatic, but fuck he was supposed to be happy today. He traded eighty ramen noodles for the phone time to arrange the trip and Loki couldn't even be bothered to write a letter.

"Trouble with the missus." Jasha nods sagely.

Tony slaps his face and groans. Trust a complete idiot to somehow cut right through his bullshit and touch the nerve.

"Wanna blunt? I got a couple left from Easter."

"Eh, I'm on a sobriety kick. Search me why." he grumbles, and feels kind of silly for throwing a fit when he knows Jasha won't take the bait. That's the nice part about celling with him. No matter how pissed off or cranky the noise and the crowds make Tony, Jasha's a doper not a fighter.

Plus he's categorically better than Tony's first cellmate Vlad the Impounder. He'd been a insurance frauder that enjoyed long walks in the yard, pulling out random people's hair, and cockroach racing. After him it was Miles the Rapist, who was actively terrifying and regularly invited the skinheads next door over for poker and white supremacy. So yeah, Jasha's not so bad.

"I got a line from my girl in the mail?"

"Just...leave me alone." Tony grunts, leaning on the wall.

"Yo, you shouldn't bottle that up, man. My counsellor says its bad to do that. She said emotions build up like a balloon inside. It gets bigger and bigger until one day–" Jasha mimes and explosion with his hands. "Pop. Jail time."

"I'll take that under consideration."

"I thought your boy was magic and shit."

"Not the right kind of magic." Tony rubs his eyes and sighs. "I'm sure it's my fault, somehow. He has a secret fear of seagulls or...fuck I don't know. Five hundred years ago somebody called him a nerd in Greece and now he hates the Mediterranean, and _obviously_ I should have known that. Because I have to be psychic and read his mind _all the time_."

"He said that?"

"No! You know why? Cause he hasn't said anything in three goddamn weeks."

"Woah, he put you in the freezer?"

"Sure, let's call it that. Why the fuck not? Yes, I am in the goddamn freezer and I don't know why."

"Were you like...cool before?"

"Yes, we were–"

"Nah, nah, not cool as in cool. Cool as in _cool._ " Jasha grabs his crotch and shakes it for emphasis.

"No comment." Tony says automatically, because it's nobody's business. But also because...maybe.

They've been on perfunctory hello-dear-how-was-your-week handjobs for a while. He was kind of hoping the trip would fix that.

Even before the three week silence Loki seemed distracted. Preoccupied by a 'challenging case' as he'd called it, a final appeal for a special client. Someone high profile enough that he couldn't give Tony a name, only the assurance that it was urgent. Months of meetings flicker through his head, memories turned inside out and examined with newly suspicious eyes.

He grips the rim of the stainless steel sink, feeling nauseous.

Jasha sits up in a rush, dim eyes wide and inspired.

"Dude, he's cheating on you."

"What the fuck, J, you can't just tell a guy that!"

"I'm just sayin' what we was both thinkin'."

"I was not thinking that."

Now he is though. Now he's thinking very vividly about it. Flopping on the bottom bunk, he pulls at his hair and pointedly avoids looking at the photos taped to the wall.

"Whatever, Princeton. Yo, did you hear? I was talking to the Armenians this morning, and they was saying that the dudes in the computer lab said–"

"I will give you my pudding cup for a week if you shut up."

"No need to get agitated…" Jasha mumbles.

" _Two weeks._ Two weeks of pudding if you don't say another word the rest of the day."

Beautiful, blessed silence reigns with the exception of the constant noise from outside. Bars clanking and men shouting at each other, boots thudding on concrete and the distinctive laugh of Kazimir the Uzbek all the way down in C block.

Tony soaks up the relative quiet and lays face down, fighting his own mental images of Loki doing stuff with other people. He wraps his hand around the brand on his wrist and feels like utter trash for doubting.

Logically he knows Loki would never, could never want someone else. But twenty seven years is a long damn time. And the shameful truth is Tony's not sure he could make it that long either. If it were Loki in here and him on the outside with the whole world clamoring for his attention...he can't say for sure that he wouldn't slip up.

"That's a low blow man, cheating on a guy in the pen." Jasha mumbles.

"He is not cheating." Tony growls.

"Yo, I feel for ya, dude. It's like my girl used to say when she was throwin' my shit out the window," Jasha puts on a pitchy imitation that sounds alarmingly like Nicki Minaj "Get the fuck out my house Andre, you nasty piece of shit! I'm done with your lazy ass and your stinky feet and your fat fucking pig dick!'"

Tony doubts Jasha's girl complimented his endowment while dumping him, but he opts to keep that to himself.

Laying on his stomach, he ignores the ongoing second-hand tirade and tries to forget where he is. And where Loki isn't. And what Loki isn't doing there. In some five star hotel billed on Tony's rewards card. Dolled up in his skimpy black dress and his fuck-me-daddy heels under some eight-pack film star.

"Bitches, man." his cellmate sighs, and the bed shakes again with what Tony assumes is Jasha scratching his excessively fat ass. "She was right though, dudes is nasty. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm doing. Like this one time I was home alone and, like, _super horny_. So I went to the fridge and, like, I dunno what I was thinking man, but I totally fucked a keish. You know the egg pie things? With like, ham and spinach and stuff? And man, Google lied, man. It didn't feel like a pussy at all."

"Alright, that's it," Tony says, deciding he'll take his chances with the Turks and the Soviets, "That's all the hood wisdom I can take."

"See you at lock up, brotha."

"Merry fucking Christmas." Tony grunts. He stomps out into the common area, wishing he could slam a cell door without putting the whole ward on lockdown.

"Lemme know when you want that blunt!"

Class act, that guy.

At a loss for what to do, he heads for Little Heaven. Some alone time will do him good, even if he might have to bleach his brain to get it. Guys with seniority like him have a schedule, regular times blocked out via bribes to the right people. For everyone else it's a free-for-all.

His slot is Friday at fourteen hundred, but right now it's Thursday, sixteen hundred. Not a reserved time as far as he knows. He holds his grip on the door handle and prepares to witness something ungodly.

Eeny, meany, miney...ew.

"Stark?" Vasiliev gasps, pulling up his regulation pleat front slacks. Dvořák tries to hide his face like it's news that he's a guard-fucking snitch. It would be a precarious situation to witness, except that Loki got twenty years hacked off of Dvořák's sentence five years ago, and Vasiliev has a complaint record redder than Iron Man.

"Gee, what a nice empty room." Tony says in his accented Sokovian. He taps his fingers mildly on the door knob, and in a couple seconds it really is nice and empty. Happy fucking New Year.

A ten gallon tub is turned upside down on the floor and he sits, leaning back against the steel shelving and pulling the door shut behind him.

The darkness of the closet isn't so different from the darkness of space or the darkness of the void or the darkness of death, and it's all so pointless without Loki.

He grips the band of runes on his wrist while his resolve crumbles. He has to do something. Steal a uniform, fake an illness, maybe jump in the dumpster and slip out with the garbage. Terrible ideas, all of them, but he's weak and today was supposed to be different.

Loki was supposed to pick up the phone three weeks ago and be completely smitten. Two weeks ago they were supposed to sneak into this closet and suck face like teenagers. Last week he should have gotten a letter about all the things they'll do once he's out, all the places they'll go together and how disgustingly in love they'll be.

Tonight, tonight he was supposed to be complacent, sullen but pacified by the knowledge that he'd given his family something precious. Time together. Memories to share.

He thinks about it until his hands are white from the pressure of his grip and his legs are bouncing restlessly on the tile floor. Fragments of a plan arrange themselves in his head. The clinic is connected to the processing center, it would get him past one layer of security. Svebona in laundry owes him a favor, if he hurries he can collect before dinner.

Immortal or not, his organs are human. A couple mouthfuls of borax ought to earn him a hospital stay, and once they pump his stomach he'll probably survive. From there he can pull his best Thor impression and try his luck at the outer gates.

Processing has some big boys for guards, but he could take them. He's fought alien armies, he can handle Yovchek the chain smoking ex-bouncer. Then the dinner bell rings, and reality descends like a wet blanket.

Leaving prison means being a fugitive. It would mean uprooting the kids, and Loki abandoning his practice. His clients would be shit out of luck, and there are a lot of them. Hundreds at this point, most of them innocent or at least over charged.

None of those guys could just suplex the doorman and walk out of their unfair sentences, and there's no way in hell they'd find another lawyer as good and affordable as Loki.

Hands in his pockets, he shuffles to the cafeteria like a good little convict. He sits at his usual spot in the corner and waits for Baird to get his tray. _Chained and domesticated_ , the phrase haunts him. A premonition.

Playing his part every hour of every day makes him feel like a trained monkey. Down boy, sit. Stay. Good boy. Now go play macho in the yard before the Slavs think you're weak. Be good Tony, bench press those picnic tables so they know they can't fuck with your boys.

His charges filter in from the lunch line and make their offerings of moldy bread and ramen noodle seasoning. He accepts them numbly, his mind wandering back to Loki like it always does.

Prison amplifies the impulse, but realistically he's been obsessed since the moment he stood at his bar with a petit four in his hand and realized he'd rather remember Loki's words in the morning.

Tuning out the shouting of the other men, he picks at his Christmas dinner and tries to think of the good times. Loki had a moment like that, didn't he? Surely he did.

Somewhere in between thinking too much and not thinking at all, surely there was a moment where Loki just wanted to be with him in that surprising and uncomplicated way. Maybe he'll write a letter and ask. Loki always did better with letters.

A commotion breaks up his reverie, and his gut sinks when a trio of guards beat a path for his table. They've got handcuffs, and the warden follows them at a clip. Cuffs mean transfers. Nobody gets transferred on holidays, it requires too much staff. Only a security risk would instigate a transfer today, and it would have to be pretty fucking serious for them to do it right here in the chow hall.

Scanning the line of grim faced men at his table, he feels the blood drain from his face. They're as confused as he is, not one guilty twitch in the lineup. Fuck, did Vasiliev report him? He really thought Dvořák's debt would cover him.

"Everybody down." the warden orders, and the room fills with the clatter of plastic spoons on trays as the inmates hurry to comply.

Mouthing off to guards is one thing, but nobody fucks with the warden. He's the definition of humorless. A dedicated servant of the bottom line, and always eager to ship problem cases off to the supermax next door.

The building in general is cold, but the floor is cold enough to frost glass. It's also covered in a layer of soap scum that would kill lesser beings. The goon squad pick their way over the now occupied floor, and for a scant second Tony convinces himself they aren't here for him, it's just his paranoia again. Then the warden taps his toe on Tony's boot.

"He's the one."

Cold hands drag him up and shove his hands in the cuffs. He can feel the eyes of four hundred inmates press at his shoulders as the guards shove him over bodies and around tables. The fluttering panic of a foregone conclusion sets his pulse climbing, but he doesn't react, doesn't crack.

"What did I allegedly do?"

The warden doesn't answer, leading them across the guard station and through the metal detectors to the rotunda were the three cell blocks meet. To his abject terror, they take the generally unacknowledged fourth option—the south hallway that leads to medical, processing, and the visitation rooms.

"Are there any possessions you want retrieved from your cell?"

"Where am I going?"

"Yes or no?"

"My pictures, I guess. The TV."

The warden nods to one guard and he splits off toward A block. The rest of them go left, into the clinic. Fuck, it must be solitary. They don't do physicals for moves within the facility. A check up means he's going down the road. Vasiliev must have dunked him, must have exaggerated his attitude or made up something crazy to get him gone.

The whole point of Little Heaven is the lack of cameras, so there won't be any records to defend himself with. It's the guards word against his. Assuming Loki isn't already mad about something, he will be now.

Having his status downgraded from maximum security to high represented years of work on Loki's part, on top of the law degree he finished in record time when he decided Tony's counsel wasn't good enough.

Going back means a return to isolation, to meals delivered through his door on metal trays, and visitors seen only from opposite sides of glass so scratched he can barely see through. All that work just so Tony could throw a tantrum and get himself sent back.

"I didn't do anything." he sighs, knowing it won't matter. These people only hear what they want to hear.

The exam is perfunctory, they don't know how his body works anyway. Just a formality. A minimal attempt at disease control. Then they are off to the commissary, where they need his signature for some reason, and then the councillor, chaplain, laundry, bathroom. Everyone gets a piece and a signature and in a blur of people and paperwork he's deposited on a bench in processing, dazed and stripped to his tighty-whities.

Maria the processing officer doesn't make him wait. She has a softer hand than most, maybe because she receives visitors and lawyers as well as sorry bastards like him. She's one of the only women in the prison and a safe bet at six feet eight inches.

The warmth and smoothness of her hand gives him tingles when she takes his fingerprints, and his neck prickles with shame. Here he is working himself into a jealous fit while his own body responds to even the most professional of touches. To her credit, she notices and lets go as soon as she reasonably can.

"ID, please?" she asks. After some rummaging through the pile of his clothes he finds it, and stares when she puts it through a shredder under the desk.

"Don't I need that?" he asks, feeling as dumb as Jasha as he watches the slivers of plastic fall into the bin.

"It's against federal regulation." she says, and misses his baffled look in favor of walking into a back room to retrieve some kind of cardboard box.

"Here's your personal property," she says, setting it on the bench beside him, "Please verify that all of your possessions are accounted for and sign here."

A clipboard with yet more paperwork clatters onto the bench and no matter how hard his pulse screams in his ears he can't get a single coherent thought to form. He stares vacantly at the dotted line and the pen dangling from a string.

She staples his latest medical report and slides it into a thick three-ring binder.

"Here's your medical history, and this is a debit chip with the balance from your charge account."

"W-where am I going?" he asks shakily, and has to blink back a violent rush of emotion he couldn't pay money to name.

Now Maria looks confused, scanning his bare skin up and down and glancing down at the binder that's still heavy in her hand.

"I was told you have a ride. I suppose you're going wherever he is."

"He? He who?"

Maria frowns. "You are Stark, right? Anthony E."

"That's me." he answers. In a daze, he throws the lid off the box, although inside it's more of a time capsule. His hands tremble a he lifts out a coat, _his coat_. Mold-rotten grey wool with black leather sleeves cracked dry from neglect. Below that, a moth eaten suit with a faded "I Believe in Santa" sticker still on the lapel.

"I have an eighty year sentence."

"And I have a family that expected me home an hour ago. Chop, chop."

Hastily, he pulls on the suit, blindsided by the whisper of fine linen shirting on his skin and the smooth, perfect planes of the sport coat that pinch on his bulkier shoulders. The shoes cup his feet like they were made for him, because they were. Patterned around a mold of his foot taken a lifetime ago by a master craftsman that's probably been replaced with a robot.

Something weighs on the right pocket, and he fishes out his wallet and keys. A wad of moldy tissues. Ugly hillbilly sunglasses with solid black frames. A perfect, gold ring. Brand new, only worn once.

Slipping it on his finger, he marvels at his own reflection in the bullet-proof glass. That guy isn't Princeton the convict, or Stark the guardian of the rejects, or even Dr. Stark the first inmate to teach other inmates algebra. It's Tony Stark, respectable human being.

"Well, are you going?" the officer says without a trace of humor, "Cause I can put you back in if you'd rather stand around all night."

There's a big hoss of a guard tapping his foot by the door, and Tony doesn't know when he got there. Time must be broken, because every time he looks up from his ring finger more people are there, looking annoyed at his stillness. One of the apparitions has a stack of photos in his hands, and it's the flash of Loki's printed face that jolts him back into real time.

Processing only has two doors. In one side, out the other. Peeling cyrillic letters create the Sokovian word for 'exit' on the door and they cover up his face in the reflection when he takes his first step closer.

A keyring clinks behind him. His heart lurches, his hindbrain screaming at him to put his hands on his head and hit the deck. Keys mean guards, guards mean infractions, infractions mean more time, more lock ups, more listless hours of his life passing him by.

He runs even as he imagines a TV host with a handicam on the other side, waiting to yell "PUNK'D" and slap cuffs on his wrists. His clammy fingers smudge the glass and he can't breathe, can't think.

With a laugh track in his ears he pushes through. There is indeed a man in a slim-cut suit on the other side, but the only cruel joke is the look of trepidation on his face. Loki hunches in a plastic chair, sharp nails digging into his knee and his blue-grey skin tinged green by the halogen bulbs.

A tinny carol plays from overhead speakers, dated and simpering the way kitchy songs always sound. Loki's foot freezes mid anxious tap. His eyes make desperation and relief look like twins instead of siblings.

Almost as fast as Tony steps around the line of yellow acrylic chairs, he jumps to his feet and runs the last long steps between them. He smells like a hospital, like antiseptic and lost sleep and instant coffee. Tony buries his face in the scratchy wool of his scarf and searches for the earthy scent of ash and cinders underneath.

"Don't pinch me." he chokes, plunging numb hands under Loki's coat and gripping the back of his sweater.

"You're awake. You're awake, don't fret." Loki's voice is brittle and rich, so much more alive than his brusque answering machine messages. He cups the back of Tony's head.

"How–"

"Hush," Loki sucks in a deep breath and squeezes so hard they both wobble on their feet. "You utter toss, don't act so surprised. You thought you could send me on holiday all by myself?"

"You were supposed to take the kids."

"Well I'm taking you. I'm taking you and you've no choice at all. You're my captive, see? I'm going to put you on my ship and you'll never, ever escape."

"Please," Tony says too forcefully, practically shouting from a sudden need to be gone. Instantly, immediately, before the institution decides this is all a big misunderstanding. Or before whatever spell Loki wove wears off. He's still not convinced this is legitimate.

The guards behind them startle. Loki mirrors the grip on Tony's wrists and engulfs them in a pillar of flames. He has just long enough to take in the fearful expressions of the prison staff and the next moment his feet skid on ice. Sparks fly off them and meet the frozen ground with hisses and pops.

Tall fences and a looming watchtower take a beating from the wind. He waits for alarms to sound, for the guards to charge out and drag him back. It could be moments or minutes that he stands there disbelieving. Through the haze of sleet and fog he can just make out the prison yard with its futball goals and black steel picnic tables. Past that, raw wilderness.

Deep green groves and craggy grey peaks, the pine trees dusted white like gingerbread. It's beautiful. Had it always been so? Inside it just looked grey. Grey dirt on black mountains with bleached, lifeless snow.

"Tony? Tony, darling, put your arms in. Come now, you're going to get frostbite."

A weight settles on his shoulders, and his eyes wander unseeing back to Loki. The parking lot feels immense, so much space everywhere he looks. The sky is blue and Loki's pupils are so red. Ancient and world-weary.

"How did you do it?"

"I asked nicely. You remember the petition?"

"Back in '21?"

The last resort. Failed, obviously, but a valiant effort. Apparently in Sokovia the president can pardon certain types of prisoners, if they want to.

By the devil's luck the chief of state at the time had been one of the refugees on the helicarrier. Talk about a rags to slightly-richer-rags story. Tony's case hadn't found a sympathetic ear.

"I got all your blasted Earth countries to sign."

" _All the countries?_ " Tony asks, searching for an answer in Loki's stubble dotted jaw. In light of that revelation, his heavy eyes and chapped lips take on more significance.

"Nowhere in the nine realms is there a planet so rife with superfluous governance." Loki complains, "Have you heard of the Ulgonxin Atoll? I hadn't. It's quite prodigious. Despite being unpopulated and smaller than a New York block, it nevertheless has its own government. A monarchy, Tony. A monarchy!"

"So you got everyone to sign and, what? Gave it to the president?"

Loki pulls their hands from his face and cups them between his scorching palms, making heat with friction.

"I gave it to the United Nations. They could hardly reject a document every one of them had already signed." Loki snits, peevishly superior, and Tony melts. Butter in the microwave. Zap, schloop, puddle on the floor.

It's everything to him, that exasperated look, the pithy tone of voice. He and Loki outside together, under natural light and free to make as much noise as they want. Recklessly, he starts to believe this is real.

"You did all that in three weeks?"

"Your image of me must have inflated over the years." Loki says wryly. He lifts Tony's hand to give his knuckles a tired kiss. "I hate to shatter your good faith, but it was much longer than a few weeks."

Longer? In the reception room he made it sound like a spontaneous thing. Like he got Tony's gift and flew off the handle. What in the hell brought this on, if not the cruise?

Loki drops his hand to tame his wind-tangled hair. His heavy eyes drift sluggishly down Tony's moldy clothes.

"Listen to me, chewing fat while you shiver in rags. Forgive me, I don't know where my sense has gone."

Tony takes one last scan of the valley. He should be jubilant, eager to go, but his mind lingers on unfinished business. Trivial things that were vital this morning.

A box of food and fresh underwear is waiting for him at the commissary. He sprang an extra twenty dollars for smokes on last week's order because he owes the Bulgarians for darning his socks. Leizchek scheduled a tutoring session with him tomorrow, and Jasha's expecting him at lock up.

His crew is going to be in trouble without him, they're going to have to find a new gang or at least a new leader. Shit, and his students too. The semester was almost over, and somehow he got them all passing. Will they get their credits? Probably not.

With a jerky maneuver he puts his arms in the sleeves of Loki's coat and rubs the last of the wetness from his eyes. He angles himself toward their ride, leading the way across the black ice.

"Are they really still flying those old Quinjets, or are you just getting sentimental on me?"

Loki shakes his head, smiling wistfully.

"Your designs are dated, but they've not yet outdone your fuel efficiency."

"And you're a cheap skate."

"I am frugal." Loki sniffs, rubbing his chapped nose with a playful glare.

"Semantics."

"Relevant distinctions."

A buzzing energy takes hold of him just then, with the institution behind him and the Quinjet waiting. He balls up a fistful of snow and throws it at Loki's back. It explodes in a shower of white and his partner freezes, looks over his shoulder.

Tony ducks behind the open gangway of the jet and prepares another round. Back to the metal fuselage, he cups the snowball in a quickly numbing hand and edges to peer around the corner.

Loki's gone. A puff of warm air ghosts his neck, the telltale flash of teleportation, and then he's being pelted from behind.

"Aaack! Loki no!"

"Are you sure you want to start this with me, love? We are not called frost giants for naught."

He dodges under the nose of the ship, cackling and sliding to avoid a spray of ice.

"Come back, darling, why must you run from me?"

"You're cheating!"

"Me? Resorting to underhanded tactics? You must be mistaken."

Tony squats to make more ammunition and Loki tackles him from behind. They tussle like school kids, kicking up powder and throwing their weight around until they're both soaked and Loki has him pinned.

"Oh no, you've caught me." Tony smirks, hooking his legs around Loki's knees and resting his arms across his back.

"Then I shall have to claim my prize."

The press of lips warms him from the inside out. Loki's hungry for it, uncharacteristically demanding in the way he dives in and cradles Tony's head like he's the most precious thing.

It awakens something, reminds him who he is, of who they both were when they started this. Two idiots drunk off their own hormones and determined to binge for as long as it lasted. Good things never stayed before Loki, and they certainly never came to save him from his own dumb-fuck decisions.

Arching up, he moves his arms to Loki's waist and hugs him closer. Without warning Loki returns the embrace and stands up, picks him up like he weighs nothing and throws him over his shoulder. An undignified yelp escapes his mouth as gravity rebels and he laughs all the way up the gangway.

"Sayonara suckers, I'm going home!" he yells shamelessly. His voice echoes on the mountain peaks and Loki chuckles softly.

"You've no idea where you're going. You're my prisoner, remember?"

"I'm his problem now!" he declares to the howling wind and the nightshift workers exiting their cars.

Loki taps the control panel to seal the jet's rear door with a rumble of dark laughter, and neither of them look back.

Nyr Asgard has come a long way in a couple decades. He's seen bits and pieces in the background of pictures, but nothing compares to the real thing. Given the rough start, he expects the city of Haven to be on the ramshackle side, but from street level it looks like a pretty happenin' burg.

Small shuttles and airbuses circle the jetdock platform where teams of smartly dressed Asgardians load and unload docking ships. Over the edge of the elevated walkway he can see steel arches and slate roofs, a network of round plazas extending from the Landing Memorial.

Loki jumps the gap between the Quinjet's gangway and the platform with none of his usual grace. After a ten hour flight he claimed motion sickness, and Tony didn't have time to pin him down before the jet entered it's landing sequence and they had to get strapped into something.

He's never minded turbulence before, and that strikes Tony as very off. Then again he's been travelling non-stop for two months as far as he can tell, so maybe a break in pattern is normal. Either way he's not entirely confident in Loki's teleporting.

"Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Not at all." Loki says with a strained smile. "But you need clothes, and perhaps some gifts for the children. Don't wreck the day on my account."

"If you say so." Tony huffs as the flames coil around them. He'd be okay in a bathrobe if it got Loki to lie down.

A cursory glance places them in one of the squares, a smaller one on the edge of town. In the central median is a bronze statue of a pegasus rearing up. A gaggle of teenagers crowd around it, trying to climb on its back.

Loki brushes ash from his sleeve. He pulls Tony down a narrow gap between a bakery and a shoe shop, each constructed out of what appear to be engine blocks from Thanos' ship. In the back of the building hangs a corrugated metal sign with a swan shape cut out and an oval outline of letters.

Curiously, it's in English. Valkyrie's Flight Armory and Fine Clothiers. The door is a drag flap right off a 787. Still dragging him by his suit jacket, Loki pauses with his hand poised to knock.

"Whatever you do, don't tell the owner you've given up liquor."

"Huh?" Tony asks, just in time for the door to swing open and unveil an imposing woman with mocha skin and geometric white makeup under her eyes.

She looks like she steps on testicles recreationally, and if that's really the case he can see why some guys would go for it. Hurling an empty bottle into what was probably once a compost heap but now resembles an obstacle course for rats, she hocks a loogie into the gutter.

"Oh good, you're in." Loki says.

Tony can tell by his shit-eating tone that they're friends. Which means she hates Loki's guts and he feeds on her ire.

"You better buy something this time." the woman warns to Loki's implacable grin.

"But of course. I have coupons." Loki says brightly. "Tony, darling, this is Valkyrie. Well, I suppose her given name is Brunnhilde, but you can understand why she doesn't use it."

"You're parents must have hated you." Tony says. He holds out his hand and Valkyrie shakes.

"Coupons don't apply to items already on sale."

"Oh, I'm sure we can come to an agreement." Loki says merrily. As always, its hard not to be drawn in by his playful charm. Loki doesn't stop being magnetic just because Tony's nursing uncomfortable suspicions.

The interior is a modest duplex, split down the middle between Valkyrie's store and the shoe shop in the front. An old man with a silver moustache snoozes behind the counter where Valkyrie returns to crack open a fresh bottle of spirits.

"Help yourself. Dressing room's over there, not that you'll be needing alterations."

"Her business model is to undercharge on pieces and make it back on fittings and enchantments." Loki whispers.

"You're a bad man." Tony's lip twitches up as he works out Loki's gambit.

"I thought I was a cheapskate?"

"Trickster." Tony amends. Fuck it, he's enjoying this. Can't not with Loki being all bubbly and sauntering down store isles. He pauses by a rack of undergarments in one corner. It's mostly thermal tights and loincloths, but one rack has human equivalents.

"Well If I am already in trouble..." Loki smirks, flicking his fingers through the hangers until he uncovers a few pairs of lacey lingerie hiding behind the boxers in the human section.

Checking the counter, he's relieved to see Valkyrie tipping back her bottle with her nose in a magazine. He ducks under Loki's arm and picks his favorite of the lot. Black, strappy, more of a negligee than a bra.

"This one." he says softly, his stomach flipping at the flash of interest in Loki's eyes.

"As you wish." Loki replies, and this time the flip is considerably lower.

Hearing those words in a place like this feels deviant. He grabs a few pairs of briefs for himself and scans the rest of the shop. Nobody else around except for Valkyrie, who seems more interested in her bottle then them.

"Ok then, bad boy, why don't you pick some things for me and we'll try them on together." Tony slides his hand up his partner's leg to squeeze his butt and Loki gives him those legendary bedroom eyes.

"Go on." he says with a pinch that makes Loki jump and scoot away. "And don't worry about the money. You deserve it."

Loki glances to Valkyrie and with his back to the counter he mouths _yes, Mister Stark_ with those pretty lips. Pretty little monster.

Decisions have never been a problem for him, and there aren't a whole lot of options. Within a minute he's got a handful of scandalous things, and he figures he ought to stake out the dressing room before he embarasses Loki in front of his fri-enemy.

Then again, she's going to have to ring up their purchases anyway. And she might know what Loki's been up. Valkyrie ignores him when he leans on the counter, so he taps the service bell and gives a winning smile when she rips herself from her fashion rag.

"Problem?" she says, and Tony wonders if she's this rude to all her customers. Might explain the need for discount pricing.

"More of a curiosity." Tony shrugs, tilting his head to where Loki is picking through tunics. "You two seem friendly."

"We help each other out." Valkyrie takes a long drag of booze and stares him down. Burps nice and loud like it's an accomplishment to drink your problems. He grinds his teeth around the impulse to comment.

"So he hasn't been seeing anyone or, I don't know, doing anything unusual?"

"Seeing anyone?" Valkyrie smirks, "He's a lawyer. That's all he does, mate."

The woman's dark eyes dart to the hangers in her hand and she smirks.

"Oh I get it. You're Mister Stark."

"He did not–"

"Oh, he did." Valkyrie snickers, her eyes bright above a knowing grin. And then her expression sobers. "You doubt him?"

The harsh truth snuffs out his good humor too. He covers his mouth with his hand, and decides he's already too deep in this conversation to back out.

"I've been gone a long time." he admits, feeling stupid now he's come out and said it. Of course it's ridiculous, he already knew that.

"He's not the sort. I know his reputation and all that, but it's rubbish. Not a day goes by that he doesn't mention you." Valkyrie scoffs. Despite his best efforts to be discrete, he's pretty sure she detects his relief. She leans in and speaks in a secretive tone.

"But I will say he's been poking around the frocks lately. Not the armor, he's always into that." She points at a section by the door where several gowns and headdresses adorn slender mannequins. "But lately it's the proper lady's wear."

Huh. Loki's got a pile in his arms now, the unruly stack knocking items off shelves as he makes his way to the dressing room.

"Well in that case..." he trails off, tapping his hand on the counter and standing straight. "Appreciate your help."

"The next one will cost you."

"I'll keep that in mind." He wanders to the "proper lady" clothes and flicks through and picks colors and styles at random. Loki's the one with taste around here, he always just wore whatever showed up in the closet. Shrugging he inspects the fur and satin and figures Loki looks good in anything anyway.

In the dressing room Loki is already sorting his selections into stacks. It's a lot more than Tony got, and none of it looks like his idea of a practical outfit.

"What's first?"

"Socks." Loki says firmly, directing him to sit on a bench across from an old mirror with spotted edges.

He unwraps a wad of what looks like gauze from a net bag. Ah, the infamous Asgardian socks.

Unfurling the wad of black fabric, Loki sits at his feet and slips his toes into a pocket at one end. The light touch on his bare ankle does things to him, makes his brain flicker like an over-amped lightbulb and his skin yearn for more.

Tony watches Loki wind the fabric up his leg in a matter of seconds and clip it effortlessly to a hook at the end.

"Lot of trouble just for socks." he says just to break the silence. Loki gives him a patient look.

"We were ecstatic when the first shipment came to the front. They wick moisture, and prevent blisters as well. I knew soldiers who lost toes to boot rot."

"Which front?"

Loki mulls it over as he does up Tony's other leg.

"My memory is spotty. I can't say for sure." he hesitates, chewing his cheek. I'd just had Sleipnir and I was persuaded to entrust him to Gofriedr for raising. I wasn't myself after that, not for a long while."

"Sorry I reminded you."

Loki shakes his head and stands, pulling a pair of, ahem, _culottes_ from the wall and pulling the laces open.

"It's been on my mind recently." he admits. "He lives just down the street."

Tony takes the pants and starts wrestling them on.

"You get along?"

"Well enough, I suppose. He's grown, self-supporting. Enjoys his work at the brewery. As a parent—not that I was any kind of parent to him but—as a parent I'm satisfied."

"Big beer drinker?"

Loki smirks, kneeling again to help Tony into his boots and tuck the ends of the culottes into the knee-high leather.

"No, he simply enjoys pulling the carts. I just glad there's still a good job for a horse in this day and age."

"Hey, it's a dog eat dog world." Tony smirks, standing up and inspecting himself in the mirror. "I look like Peter Pan's goth uncle."

Loki snorts. "You look fit to me."

"Well, if't be true the mistress approves..." he winks, and doesn't try to be subtle about flexing. The prison diet was good for one thing, at least. Loki's eyes linger on his chest as he saunters closer until they're hip to hip.

"Oh, I very much approve." Loki breathes, dancing his fingers down the V of his abdomen.

"What do you think, no shirt?"

"It would cause a scandal." Loki grins.

"That doesn't sound like a no."

Hiding his face in Tony's neck, Loki giggles like a naughty kid stealing cookies. The sound takes Tony back years, it's been so long since they could just enjoy each other like this. No time limit or risk of being caught.

"I would disembowel anyone who got within a league of you." Loki sing-songs, his hands wandering up Tony's back and holding him close. "I meant it, darling, you're mine. I've no intention of sharing."

Normal people would probably run right about now, but to his ears it's the sweetest promise. Never alone, never again, no more fear or paranoia. Valkyrie's right, Loki would sooner castrate himself than betray what they have.

"Then you better cover me up." Tony quips, pecking Loki behind his ear and scratching at his hair until he pulls away.

The upper garments are more self-evident than the pants, but Tony's not crazy about the butt skirt or the sash. He's covered neck to kneecap in silk and leather, and every item gets magically tailored until he can barely touch his own elbows.

It's kind of ridiculous but the cloak does billow rather dramatically when he walks, and even if he looks like Legolas' goth uncle Tony has to admit it's kind of fun to look like a king on a parade float.

With a teasing tilt of his head he holds his hand out to Loki like a monarch waiting for a kiss.

"How to I look?" he asks with a mock look of regal superiority.

"Delectable." Loki hums. Smiling warmly, he steps close to oblige his highness...and bites his hand.

"Ow!" Tony laughs, shaking out his hand. "Feisty today, aren't you?"

"Yessir." Loki says with sparkling eyes, his face split in a self-satisfied grin.

"Ready for your turn?" he asks, slipping off Loki's sweater and starting on the buttons of his oxford.

"If I've earned it."

"Oh, if you've earned it? Well, let's see about that." he says, pretending to think about it. "You've gotten me out of prison fifty years early, flown me home in time for Christmas, let me feel you up in public, and buried me in the fanciest digs I think I've ever worn. Think that's worth a reward?"

"Perhaps a small one."

"Oh, it'll be small, don't worry about that."

He tosses Loki's clothes on the bench and hands him the hangers from the hook.

"Think you can squeeze into one of these?"

"I can squeeze _into_ almost anything. It's getting out that generally proves challenging." Loki says with a dirty grin, and gives a fascinating demonstration of magical squishery. He stays blue for it even though he's not generally one for crossdressing—something about things not flattering his shape.

In Tony's rather informed opinion, he's not having that problem today. Loki turns in front of the mirror with a doubtful expression.

"Oh, the mockery." he sighs. "Can you even imagine?"

Frankly, the Asgardians can eat their own stuck-up asses, because Loki looks gorgeous. He chose an off-white gown, and the light silk flows over his midnight skin like fog on a lake. The gold neckline cuts across his chest and connects to a slender gold armband with chains dangling from it that his fingers toy with nervously. It's easily the softest he's ever looked, his chest rising and falling with anxious breaths that flutter the gossamer fabric.

Tony stands behind him and doesn't disguise his appreciation. With a kiss to his bare shoulder he lays his hands on Loki's hips and thumbs at the braided gold belt.

"You know I really can't. Anyone who thinks you're anything less than stunning needs a lobotomy."

Casting his eyes down, Loki smiles sadly.

"Well I suppose I will have to adapt." he meets Tony's eyes in the mirror, bites his lip. He opens his mouth, face taking on a serious tilt that seems out of place, and doesn't get the chance to finish whatever he intended to say.

"Call from," a robotic voice says, accompanied by a buzzing from Loki's abandoned suit jacket.

"Thor." a rich voice says after a static-filled pause.

Loki brushes him off and accepts the call.

"Brother!" Thor's crackling hologram says with a doofy grin, "I thought I saw your ship in the whirl, have you landed? Were you victorious?"

Background noise filters in while Thor waits for an answer. The sounds of a crowd, machines whirring loud and children laughing.

"I have him." Loki assures, waving for Tony to step around and shoving the device in his hands. He darts out of the field of vision as quickly as possible and magics himself into Agardian menswear. Shame.

"Stark!" Thor sets his hands on his hips, as sunny and simple as ever. Tony forces a media smile, the best he can manage around the whiplash.

"Point Break, your hair's gone."

"Ay, there was a terrible chewing gum accident. I suppose it's much easier to wash now!" Thor laughs, "I'm glad to see you've arrived. We were beginning to wonder what we'd do with all this food if you didn't show."

"Food? Damn you, oaf, what have you done?" Loki snaps.

"Well it would not be much of a revel without food!"

"I specifically requested the suspension of revels."

Thor looks offended, and the camera swings violently as he stomps out of wherever he is and into somewhere blindingly bright and at least twice as loud. Tony's ears prick when he recognises Jori's shrieking laughter.

"Young ones, come and look," the transmission flickers and the perspective abruptly drops to ground level. "Jormungand? Stop, stop right there. Fenrir put the nail gun down."

A hand with painted black fingernails picks up the camera. With a wobble the image clarifies into Hela's somber face.

"Tony's on the holophone!"

That captures everyone's attention. Moments later the cabin is crowded with holograms all fighting for real estate on the transmitter's limited field. Voices erupt out of the console speakers, a wall of sound so loud and overwhelming it could probably shatter glass.

"One at a time, geez, am I raising giants or blow horns?"

"I have a gun!" Fenrir beams. He pulls the trigger and hologram nails fly past Tony's head like he's in the Matrix.

"Hey, woah, put the weapon down." Tony sees the cliche from a mile away and watches it zoom out his mouth anyway. "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Thor grabs the nail gun and a few more rounds shoot out as Fenrir refuses to let go. Stubbornly clutching the gun grip, his eyes go wide when Thor lifts him off the ground entirely. Jori takes the transmitter from Hela, and he's treated to an up close view of his drippy kid nose and gap-toothed grin. Pitchy breathing peaks the microphone.

"Hi Tony."

"Jori, you have to hold it further away." Hela says, and the camera shakes again, traveling back until he can see the kid's whole face. His cheeks are pink, ears covered in what looks like a knit turban. "Now say hi again."

"Hi, Tony!"

"Hey Little Bit, that's a cool hat you've got. Are you outside?"

Jori looks at where Tony assumes Hela is standing off screen and nods.

"We're hanging a sign."

"A sign? What kind of sign?"

"A big sign."

Hela angles the camera toward a snowy street where a cluster of figures are hanging a banner across wooden posts. It's in rune, but it looks pretty festive, the characters red and green.

"It says 'Welcome Mortals.'" Hela explains. "I don't think it occurred to them that the visitors won't be able to read it."

"There's something to be said for feng shui." Tony shrugs. "Visitors?"

"Your welcome party. There's a lot of them. Uncle Thor insisted."

"Thanks for the heads up." Tony says, scratching at his reactor scar. "I better hang up. I'm actually in the middle of a makeover."

"The socks are wild." Hela says by way of goodbye and hangs up, all cool wit and stylish aloofness. He's unspeakably proud. A chip off the ol' block.

Chuckling to himself, he sorts through the hooks and picks out the least over-the-top options. And the creme gown, because _come on_.

"Go pay, I'll take care of the rest." He shoves the yes pile in Loki's arms and holds open the curtain that functions as the dressing room door.

"All of this?"

He must really be fluent in Loki, because he knows even though his back is turned that he's asking about the dress. Honestly.

"Yes, babe, all of it. Treat yourself."

He can't tell if Loki's embarrassed or thrilled, but frankly he doesn't care. That shit is as much a gift to himself as it is to Loki. By the time he leaves the dressing room Valkyrie is buried in her magazine again and Loki's sulking in the shoe store.

The old mans' shop is much richer than the clothier. Trendy white wood with slate floors and lights over the display models. He walks around a stack out to find Loki stopped in front of a shelf of kids shoes.

They're an assortment, from fuzzy baby slippers to miniature versions of adult boots and even a few sneakers. He's holding a pair with little bear faces on the toes, his eyes turned down in blank contemplation. Round fuzzy ears stick out from the velcro straps. Loki strokes one with his thumb.

"A little small for Jori, aren't they?"

"What?" Loki jumps.

"The shoes?"

"Oh! Yes, yes of course. Much too small." Loki agrees, shoving the slippers back on the shelf. "I was just thinking he might like them. If I commissioned a larger size."

Tony picks up the shoes, turning them around in his hand. He's sort of charmed by how they both fit in one palm. So tiny, do people really start out that small?

"They are pretty adorable...though we shouldn't encourage the baby thing too much."

"I know, forgive me I'm being foolish." Loki snatches the shoes and returns them to the shelf again.

"Hey, it's fine. I was kind of hoping to find gifts. If you're up to it?"

Now he's no longer distracted by his two favorite pastimes, Loki's moving slower. Eyes heavy and responses sluggish.

"I'd rather not." Loki says, leaning ever so slightly on his shoulder. "Can we go home?"

Tony takes his hand and shuffles closer until the grasp is lost under their cloaks and sleeves.

"You'll have to tell me where it is." Tony jokes, quietly into the space between their noses that he's starting to think of as their personal universe.

"You know it." Loki smiles, the real one that looks like he's apologizing for something. "It was yours before it was mine."

"Buffalo?"

Loki nods. They walk to the front door of the shop and push through the heavy oak door.

"Half this city used to be Buffalo, before the Sanctuary crash leveled it. Didn't you watch the news?"

"Never. Too depressing."

"Ah, well. Then yes, the estate is twenty minutes by aircar. We'll need a taxi."

They emerge into a busy square. A domed greenhouse protects a colorful garden in the center, and around that aircars and hoverbikes circle in mild afternoon traffic. It seems to be a fashion district, many of the shops open to the street and bursting with bolts of fabric and tanned hides. Street food vendors man the corners, exchanging skewers of grilled meat and corn for cash.

Loki leads him to the side of the road and holds out his hand. Against the backdrop of a familiar and yet profoundly changed Earth, the sight of Loki hailing a taxi with nothing more than a hand and a prayer is unspeakably comforting. One single thing that hasn't changed in all the time he's been away.

Waiting in the colorful market surrounded by noise and bartering, he feels cheated. This was all bubble when he went to jail, and now it's old news. The energy of rebuilding, of fusing wreckage and fantasy into visions of a seemingly impossible future is among his favorite experiences in life.

It would have been fun, walking dirt paths and painting bridges and skyscrapers in each other's mind. Plotting out transit systems and schools and taverns and hospitals. Filling them up with amazing works of magi-tech crafted by their combined imagination.

Like all things, it comes down to lost time. Missed moments they'll never get back. He's glad when a taxi with a dented fender pulls up to the curb and the doors swing open on automatic hinges.

The fare for a trip out of the city is a racket, but when Loki passes out on his shoulder he figures it was a good idea not to teleport. The city passes in a blur of architecture and commerce, brand new and also rather beaten in by the Upstate elements.

As soon as he grows accustomed to the purple scrap buildings and stone chimneys, they pass under a marble arch and enter thick, baren, snow-dusted wilderness.

Ten minutes after that he sees it. A sweeping modern home with all the hallmarks of Stark style, and not far from that a Hansel-and-Gretel cottage with a precariously tilted chimney.

Deep drifts of snow coat the sloping property undisturbed except for the riot of foot prints and snow men near a frozen pond. A gnarled willow grows near the ice, and where the rickety house marker used to be is a rather stately iron sign:

 _Private Property: Trespassers Will Be Cremated._

Under that, attached with a far too many nails:

 _ᚹᛁᛞ ᛗᛖᚾᛋᚲᚱ_ _WELCOME_ _MORTALS_ _GUESTS_

Tony grins. Home sweet home.

Several aircars and a hover bike are parked on the circle drive, but the curtains are drawn around the tall single pane windows. Loki must wake up when they turn down the long driveway, because somebody's kissing his neck and he doesn't believe in ghosts.

Groaning, Loki nuzzles into the space under his arm and inhales. Which is, okay, maybe not _the_ weirdest thing he's ever done, but definitely an honorable mention.

"Alright Slugger, whatever floats your boat..." Tony laughs nervously, "Wow, you are way up in there."

"You smell good." Loki says. Shamelessly he nuzzles closer, going for another whiff of eau-de-Stark, and Tony thinks they might have finally fallen off the deep end.

"Are you okay?" he tilts his head so he can see Loki better. His partner squeezes his eyes closed and circles his torso with his arms.

"Exceptionally."

Hard to argue with that. His hair is coarse under his hand, a bit frizzy from the wind. The cabbie very pointedly hums along to the radio and doesn't check the rearview.

"Get up, you gotta pay the guy."

"There will be people in there." Loki hides his face in Tony's cloak.

"And the munchkins." Tony reminds him.

"And _Christmas carols._ "

"And food?"

" _Poor attempts_ at food."

Tony twists closer to Loki's ear and whispers.

"And I'll eat you out if you get through the night without insulting anyone."

Hot breath puffs through his tunic and Loki rummages in his belt for his wallet.

Through the car window he sees the front door swing open. Thor waves.

Beside him Fenrir leans over the threshold, bouncing on his toes. Although they just talked on the phone it doesn't seem possible that the biters are really here. Alive, well, and right fucking there.

Without meaning to his hand tightens in Loki's sweater and he fumbles for the door handle. Vaguely at first, and then with crippling urgency. It's not where it should be, where is it? He needs to get out, he needs to run and kick snow all over the perfectly shoveled porch.

Punching the door doesn't do anything except alarm Loki, who sits up and squeezes his arm. He puts his hand over Tony's and pries his fist open, presses it to an unmarked spot on the wall as if he should obviously know that's where the sensor is. Chuckle-fuck designers and their quarter-assed garbage products. The door clicks open and the winter's bite is sweet relief, a shock back to reality as he stumbles out of the vehicle.

Fen takes a step back and Thor steadies him with a hand on his back. Blood rushes in Tony's ears as he walks numbly across the ice, a smile forcing it's way over his tight jaw. He's not gonna cry, he's not.

The kid covers his mouth with his hands and runs into the snow barefoot. They collide with enough force to knock Tony's breath out and he picks the kid up and spins. Maybe he's too old for it, maybe he's too young not to do it, it's so hard to gage. His sense of time is so fucked up, between days that feel like eternities and entire years that escape his memory.

This moment stretches, nestling deep in his heart and making a home for itself. No one's hugged him like this since his mother died, like he's a central pillar of their world.

"Hey, buddy." he chokes.

Wrapping his legs around, Fenrir licks his face. Tentatively, like he's not sure he's allowed. Tony grabs the kid by the horn and bites his nose, thrilling at the the peel of giggles. Fen smilles. Big, wide.

"Missed you." Fen says.

"Me too." Tony pulls him in again. Can't help himself. "God, you're getting big. How tall are you?"

"Four marks."

"Four? With the horns?"

"Without them." Fen brags.

"We'll have to sign you up for basketball if you get any taller."

Distantly he hears small feet slap on concrete floors, and that of all things pulls him back. Such a mundane thing, the sound of kids being kids, but it's the best sound there is. In prison they had to stay in the lines. Wait here, keep still, _hush, darling, no fussing. No, we can't touch Tony. Stay in your seat or we'll get him in trouble._ Here the feet run wild and carry what can only be Jori to the door.

Whistle pitch happy shrieks blast his eardrums. Now he's the one beaming.

"I know who that is!" he yells. Fen wiggles out of his hold, and without his hair blocking Tony's vision he can finally see Jori, red faced and awe-struck with his hands over his mouth. He screams again, and flaps his arms like it's the only way to express how he's feeling. Poor kid's still pretty far behind where he should be.

Musty abandoned house smell invades his nostrils as he stumbles in through the massive double doors. Arms open, he kneels and Jori tackles him. No tears this time, just pure kiddie joy.

"Tony! Tony, Tony, Tony!" Jori squeals, beyond proper words. He feels weightless, in need of a pinch, because he can't bear for this to be a dream. Home. Home with his family on Christmas.

"I heard someone in this house needs kisses. Who is it? Do you know, Big Boy?"

"Me, it's me!"

Tony feigns surprise and smacks his forehead.

"Of course! I can see it now. Oh yes, this is very serious."

He attacks the kid's head with smooches.

"Not my face!" Jori bursts out laughing.

"Huh? Only on your face?" Tony asks. Redirecting the battery of kisses to Jori's cheeks and forehead, he has to squint and flinch away from the retaliatory bats of the kid's arms.

"Noooo!" Jori giggles.

"There we go, all topped up." Tony ruffles unruly hair. Two little bumps drag at his hand. Genuinely surprised this time, he pushes Jori's curls aside and finds the first tiny bumps of horns coming in.

"Oh my Godzilla, what are those?"

"Horns!" Jori shouts, and in the entry hall the sound rings his ears.

"Inside voices, love." Loki chides as he walks up the porch steps, shopping bag in hand. The taxi pulls away and it sinks in all over again that he's reached his final destination. This is his stop.

"He's got horns." he gushes. Loki smiles indulgently. Obviously he already knew that. He brushes the kid's hair every morning. But holy hell the brats have grown. Part of him got used to thinking they'd stay little forever.

"I'm a big boy." Jori says with his hands on his hips.

"A big little boy." Thor adds.

The brothers exchange an only slightly awkward embrace, and then it's his turn to be lovingly strangled. It lasts too long, and Thor doesn't acknowledge the _okay-thank-you-I'm-done-now_ back pat in any way.

"It's good to see you hail." Thor says sincerely, heartbreaker that he is. Seriously, one day Tony will muster up the emotional energy to reciprocate equally, but Thor's unilateral affection for any and all brothers-in-arms is hard for him to fully comprehend.

"Back at you, Aquaman, can you lighten up? I gotta breath." Tony rasps.

"Indeed." Thor pats him on the back way too hard and stakes himself out of it. Forces a bright smile. "Come, our comrades await."

"Where is Hela?" Loki asks. Thor winces.

"Cooking."

Loki looks back at the open porch door like he's considering retreat.

"You can always put the plate down and pretend you don't know which one's yours." Tony suggests.

"Ze just makes you a new one." Fenrir groans.

The living room is enormous. Not only from the square footage but from the complete lack of any personal belongings. Slapdash attempts at decoration only somewhat cover the austerity. A live fir tree grows right out of the floor in the corner, it's roots cracking bits of the foundation.

"The hell is wrong with that Christmas tree?"

Loki blinks at him like it should be obvious.

"I saw no reason to slaughter a perfectly healthy specimen."

"You're fixing the floor."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Of course."

Mostly-familiar faces look up from a circle of folding chairs arranged around a free-standing chimney in the middle of the massive living room. A curved wall of windows looks out on the postcard-worthy lawn, an expansive kitchen on one side of the view and a span of built-in bookshelves on the other.

Swags of garland have been hung over the windows and along the kitchen cabinets. A smattering of poinsettias grace the otherwise empty shelves, but there's no real furniture. Not even a floor rug to cover the polished concrete.

"You know, all this time I assumed at least one of us had actual furniture."

Proudly, Loki shakes his head and tugs his free hand in Tony's elbow. Their eyes meet and that look of open anticipation and longing is like a note in the margins of a book or a name and date scratched on the back of a photograph. Back to the start, they can do this.

"It's been empty all this time. Waiting for you."

"All this time?"

"Since 2018. I thought it would be nice. A fresh start."

The kiss is inevitable. Couldn't be anything else. The butterflies come back like it's the first time, like they never left that bush in Staten Island and every kiss after has been an addendum to the constitution Tony drafted in his head while Loki claimed his mouth for Asgard.

He brushes Loki's hair away from his face and thumbs at the hollow of his cheek. Trying to make sense of him and his infinite complications, his seemingly limitless capacity to touch parts Tony didn't know he had.

Someone wolf-whistles.

"Get it Stark." Clint bellows, and Tony can't even pretend to be embarrassed. He sweeps Loki's leg with his foot and and holds him in a dancer's dip. Frenches him good and sloppy just in case anyone's brave enough to keep watching.

A chorus of groans is his reward, and even Loki's attempt to appear indignant falls flat beside his flushed cheeks and pleased grin.

"Enough stalling, let's party!" Barnes shouts.

"I concur." Tony calls back, pulling Loki back up and pointing authoritatively at random places on the wall. "Pour the bubbly. Drop the bass. Hoist the mainstay. You there, small child whose name escapes me, I declare you Master of Ceremonies. Speeches may be required."

Someone shoves a sparkling cider in his hand. Hugs and handshakes fly in rapid succession, and he's met with so many faces made droopy by extended exposure to gravity. Grey haired and wrinkly, they're all so old. Telling him with animated gestures how much he's been missed.

It's too much. Air feels thin in his chest as he accepts each smile, overwrites his mental image of each face. They're all here; Bruce, Rhodey, Natasha in her wheelchair, Parker with his lady and kids, even Rogers. Everybody but the one he's looking for.

"Where's Hela?"

People look around, murmuring.

"Here." Hela's gruff voice answers. He follow it to the kitchen, around the chimney and past folding chairs until he sees a tall teen hunched in the door of a walk-in pantry. Sniffing ze looks over hir shoulder at all the onlookers and shrinks as much as a giant can. Embarrassed. Fuck that.

"Come here." Tony says, smiling at hir shyness. Not often seen, but significant. Ze's really struggled these past years. They've relied on hir a lot to pick up the slack. Clean the house, watch the boys, talk Loki off the edge. His return means a lot for hir.

Hand on hir chest, ze shakes her head and nearly trips over hir feet enveloping him in a big bear hug. Ze's taller than him now. Damn it they had to be Jotun, didn't they? He couldn't have given his heart to dwarfs or pixies or anything normal sized.

Hela sobs into his collar, and like always hir joy and relief get his own waterworks going. They're hopeless, the two of them. Every damn time one of them loses their shit they pull the other one down the vortex. Ze squeezes him so tight his back pops, and they both chuckle through their soppy smiles.

"You alright?" Tony asks as the room claps and cheers. Hela nods, wipes at hir eyes, and a chorus of _awwws_ slips out from the women and Clint.

"Y-yeah."

"You been good?"

"Yeah." ze lies. Probably. Truth is, life as a teenager hasn't brought out the best in Hela. It's hard to make friends when the other teenages grow up and go to college in the time it takes hir to get a haircut. He punches hir in the arm and traps hir in an noogie, laughing when ze squirms.

"I have to check the stew." ze pleads, tugging half-heartedly at his arm around hir shoulders.

"Oh, do you?" Tony teases, and doesn't comment when ze wiggles out and returns to the pantry to compose hirself.

There are indeed Christmas carols on the kitchen radio, which Barnes cranks to an unreasonable volume because 'the old folks don't hear so good' and not, supposedly, because it makes Clint rip out his hearing aid and sign rude looking words.

Hela returns with an armful of spices and stirs a bubbling pot. The contents look starchy and very beige.

"This must be the famous holiday boil." Tony surmises.

Hela nods cheerfully. Scooping up a bite onto hir wooden spoon, ze holds it to his mouth. Hiding his gag should qualify him for the Oscars. It tastes like raw flour and toe fungus. Somehow over spiced and bland at the same time.

"Well?" Hela asks, fishing for praise ze is so direly undeserving of.

"Yum." Tony coughs, still trying to chew the rubber chicken to a swallow-able size.

"Oh no, did I overcook the meat again?"

Apologizing to his own intestines, he forces it down. He didn't think it was possible for food to be _worse_ than prison.

"Needs salt." he says lamely, fumbling for the nearest glass of anything liquid. "Lots more salt."

"Really?" ze furrows hir brow, picking up a bulk size carton of salt and turning it upside down over the pot. Nothing comes out. "Damn it, I knew I should have bought two."

He regrets swallowing. Loki shoots him a look from the living room that can only be translated as _i told you so_ , and sips his champagne nice and slow.

The afternoon runs from with him with alarming expediency. After lunch that thankfully includes dishes other than Hela's he's cajoled into opening stacks and stacks of housewarming gifts. Blenders, cutlery, hand towels, a very fancy gizmo called a "garber" whose function eludes him.

A high-end espresso machine from Bruce gets him crying again. He has to put the whole party on hold to rip the box to shreds and brew his first decent cup of joe in nearly thirty years. The taste is not entirely dissimilar to an orgasm in his mouth, but nobody else needs to know that.

By comparison the _you better have tacos_ doormat from Clint is delightfully shallow, and Natasha's gift of thick wool socks squeezes his heart to pulp. He didn't know cold until his first winter in the ruins of the Iron Curtain. Socks mean more than he could ever explain.

As the sun creeps into the western half of the sky the kids put on a cringe-worthy talent show that he watches with rapt attention and after that he gets Rogers to help him set up his shiny new holovision and watches his first 32k ultra-definition holiday special. It kind of gives him a headache. All those pixels.

Also, he has no idea what the show is about or who any of the characters are so it's mostly a miasma of laugh tracks and unfamiliar slang. He plays along because it's a pretty extravagant gift, but by the end Steve pats him on the back and he can't deny that he's the anachronism now.

In search of aspirin, he finds Loki in the bathroom instead. He's got his head in the sink, eyelashes wet from a wake-up splash and water dripping down his nose. The room smells like sick and cloying air freshener. They both freeze when he barges in, eyes wide and finding each other automatically in the mirror.

His partner must decide silence is his best defense, because he doesn't answer. Doesn't try to fuss. He wipes his face on a gifted hand towel and slips between Tony and the door. Trying to stop him only gets his touch knocked aside, his concern discarded. Stung, he grabs Loki's collar and the bastard rams him into the wall.

"Let me guess, you're motion sick."

Loki doesn't even deny lying, he just scowls and takes two skittish steps back. The weight of the day catches up with him, all the highs and lows and odd moments he tried to tell himself were all in his head. He moves to close the distance, tries to grab a fistful of Loki's tunic but he darts away.

"For fuck's sake–"

"I didn't want to burden you. You were in a state."

"That's the trouble with bad news, Lokes, it's bad no matter when you give it."

One step forward, one step back. He makes himself stop before they end up fighting in the middle of a party.

"It's not bad. At least, I don't think–" he stops himself, face pinched, "I sincerely hope it isn't."

His face must be a tragedy, because Loki's knuckles turn white where their clasped at his waist. On shaky legs he steps into Tony's space and wills his hands to hang at his sides. He doesn't look calmer, if that's what he's going for, now he's just statue-like and imperious.

"Tell me."

"I want to." Loki says, "I want to. Please believe me."

"I did. This morning. When you said it was airplane food." Tony spits.

Loki reaches out with that fucking apologetic frown on his face, and it's repellant. A fresh start, yeah right. More like deja vu.

Tony stalks toward the living room, back to the cries of laughter and bouncy pop songs. Maybe it's not too late to sneak a drink. Just one to take the edge off, nothing dangerous. Loki runs into him from behind, throws his arms around his shoulders and his stomach rolls.

He thought, for a few blissed out hours he _actually thought_ this was real. Happily ever after. But Loki is still Loki. He can be anything he wants to be except someone else.

"Tonight. As soon as we can be alone. Tonight."

"I can't believe you." Tony croaks. Trembling lips touch the back of his head and Tony tries to break out of his arms. Loki holds tighter and he thinks he might be sick too.

"I promise." Loki repeats. He rocks on the balls of his feet and Tony gets pulled along with him. "I promise."

He isn't much fun after that, and everyone seems to notice. The party winds down over a round of Dirty Santa that probably would have been the highlight of the night if he wasn't cranky and distracted. He just wants to drag Loki to a back room and interrogate him, but as the guest of honor his participation is mandatory.

Ripping open the paper of an oddly shaped box reveals a bag of Halloween candy and a convenience store personal grooming kit with a pink leopard print case. Jokes on them, he actually needs all that shit. The guys all have a laugh about the pink and the nail files and whatnot, but he couldn't care less. It has a real pair of tweezers in it.

Now that he knows what to look for Loki's about as subtle as a freight train. The flute he's been nursing all afternoon isn't champagne, it's sparkling water for his stomach. When he needs a refill he gets someone else to run it because the food in the kitchen makes his nose wrinkle and his lip twist. Last night on the plane he claimed he'd had a big lunch and disappeared into the lavatory when Tony tucked into his TV dinner.

As the evidence piles up he finds his mood slipping darker and darker, and he realizes he hasn't actually seen Loki eat once since he picked him up twenty hours ago. The kitchen island offers no shortage of enticing options, many of them reportedly made by Parker's very gifted spouse.

Paper plate in hand, he looms over the spread far too long, contemplating each dish and scoring it on a scale of one to antacid. Bitterness still eats at him but it's tipping steadily into worry as he dishes up a plate of ones and twos. Sadly for Loki the plate is predominantly Hela's efforts, since blandness is the main criteria in his rating system.

Dragging his folding chair over to the book nook feels less like burying the hatchet and more like eating it whole. The legs squeak on the concrete when he sits down and puts the plate on top of the paperback Loki's using to ignore him.

"Ah, food which will look the same coming up as going down. You shouldn't have."

Tony holds the plastic fork for his partner to take, but Loki just works his jaw and refuses to look down.

Handling Loki feels like walking in the dark, he almost forgot how it feels. Once upon a time he'd developed a sense for it. Now he's not so sure.

"It's the smell isn't it?"

"It's the everything." Loki sighs. He puts the plate on the farthest shelf and returns to his book.

"You need to eat. No wonder you look like shit."

"I'm managing."

"Is there anything that doesn't bother you?"

The book in Loki's lap slaps shut and he scrubs his eyes, which are red and puffy from him doing just that.

"Yogurt." he sighs after a staredown, stone faced and too tired to fight. "Plain yogurt with tomato."

"Okay." Tony massages his legs and takes the plate back to the kitchen to 'misplace' it.

Sure enough there's a stack of yogurt cups in the fridge and a paper bag full of tomatoes. The knife is foreign in his hand, a real knife with a sharp edge, so the slices are un-uniform and jagged. They look like a kid's craft project piled on top of the yogurt. Yum...not.

But Loki eats it. Slowly and with ample pithy commentary, but all the way. He stays by his side with his arms crossed, thoughts whirling as Dirty Santa winds down and people start wrapping up the leftovers. Parker's girl starts layering up her youngins, and everyone else takes the hint. Thank fuck.

"I'm sorry." Loki mumbles apropos of nothing.

Suspicion and doubt are like belts around his chest, getting tighter and tighter.

"Is it life threatening?"

Loki pulls until Tony's arms uncross and holds his hand. Thumbs at his knuckles and calluses.

"Not usually."

He opens his mouth to press. Loki cuts him off.

"Soon, I promise. I feel a fool for waiting."

 _Think before you act. Think before you act. Think—_

"Okay."

Chasing guests out of his house never felt so drawn out.

Romantic as the empty house is, and as hard as Loki tried to sell the idea of them all camping out under a pillowfort, Tony didn't come this far to sleep another night on cold concrete. Instead they take the menagerie down to the old cottage and put them down for the night in their own rooms.

Apparently that's where they've really been living this whole time, in a dimensional limbo between Jotunheim and Earth. He tries not to overthink the physics, particularly while he's chasing a bare-assed bubble-covered Jori in and out of the Iron Wood. Tucking in the kids plays out like a Greek tragedy, but eventually the cranky hellspawn surrender to nature and go the fuck to sleep.

Which leaves him and Loki alone in the big house, standing in the cooling embers of the fireplace after a dodgy teleportation. He counts his fingers and toes just to be sure. Ten and ten.

Crumpled gift wrap and folding chairs still litter the living room, and red plastic cups dot every horizontal surface. Even so the house feels dead, like a yawning absence of energy that needs to be aired out and invigorated.

Loki takes his hand and leads him down a curved hall and past the bathroom where they fought. His feet feel heavier with each step. Though he needs to know what's wrong he also wants to go back to blissful ignorance. It was a nice dream, those few hours where he thought they'd finally crawled out of the downward spiral.

The last door on the left is closed, the old style door handle clean where the others were grey with dust.

"I lied to you today." Loki says, "Not out of malice, and not the way you think."

"I just want to know we're okay. You're killing me with this cloak and dagger stuff."

Loki takes a deep measured breath. He opens the door.

"There is one piece of furniture I already brought in."

"Unless it's a guillotine I don't see why I'd have a problem." Tony says, squinting into the dark bedroom.

Taking his hand, Loki walks through the door and past a small en-suite bathroom. His skin feels like crawling ants, his stomach a tempest of knots as he's pulled past a closet, a light switch, a corner.

Loki stops at the last possible moment. Turning like a whip he pulls Tony to his chest, and with that he's truly panicking. Every sign points to some horrible revelation. An affair, a curse, an ultra-rare alien cancer.

Lips press to his temple and his cheek and his forehead and he doesn't want anything but the truth. He pushes Loki away, and his fiance whispers in an urgent voice.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't be upset."

"About what?" Tony demands. With a horrible conflicted face Loki steps aside.

There's a window. A smallish one with blue moonlight beaming through and a wood-lined sill. Below that an odd sort of table with a pale yellow mat, and next to it a cage looking thing layered with blankets.

A crib. For a baby. A baby crib.

"I got ahead of myself." Loki whispers.

An implosion not unlike the Big Bang goes off in his brain, and in the absence of thought all he can do is stare blankly.

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm." Loki nods, covering his own mouth and eyeing him with scant hope in his yes.

"You're?"

"Yes, love."

"And I'm?"

Loki smiles, nodding like he's just as stuck in a loop as Tony.

"Of course, idiot, of course."

"We're?"

"We could be." Loki sniffs, blinking fast.

"Parents?" Tony says in wonder, "Really?"

"Technically we already are." Loki laughs deliriously even as a few tears slip out.

"Oh my god...oh my god I'm a moron." Tony smacks his face, and now he can't stand still. He paces across the room—the nursery, _the nursery_. "Yogurt, seriously."

"Yes, thank you for that. You've implanted me with a damnable health enthusiast." Loki says with a roll of his eyes. "I've had nothing but celery and tomatoes for weeks."

"The shoes!" Tony blurts, stopping on his heel "Dresses. For the bump. You bastard, you weren't even subtle."

"I couldn't believe you didn't put it together." Loki advances, eyes bright over an uneasy smile. "I want to have it. But I would understand–"

Tony kisses him, deep. Hands in his hair and lips clashing in his rush to shut Loki up.

"No buts." he murmurs as they pull away. "Don't you dare."

"Oh thank the Norns." Loki slumps in relief. With a finger on his chin, he tips Loki's head back up. Another kiss, another moment to absorb. Fuck, a baby.

"How long? Are you sure?"

"It's been eons since my last pregnancy, but yes, I'm sure. One never forgets the feeling." Loki says, clutching Tony's neck with both hands and touching their foreheads. "As for when...I think Halloween."

"Oh...yeah. Fun night."

"That it was."

After another comforting kiss, he walks to the crib and pulls Loki with him, threads their hands over the railing.

"I should have told you, I don't know what got into me." Loki grips his hand hard. "So you see now, I had to get you out. It's hard enough with help. Without you, if I failed to get you out...I couldn't do it."

"Well you didn't fail. I'm here."

"Yes." Loki grips his hand. He works the bottom button of his doublet and brings Tony's hand to his stomach. It's smooth, toned, doesn't look or feel different.

"So the throwing up, the food. That's all normal?"

"Well, it's hardly comfortable, but it happened with Sleipnir. As far as I know I'm well."

All the factors materialize now he's thinking clearly. The concept that he and Loki are even genetically compatible is kind of revolutionary. Is it going to be blue? Will it have horns? Jotun lines? Shit, will the baby have a sex at all? He needs a lab, stat. And an expert, if there even is such a thing.

Loki coaxes him back with a touch to his cheek.

"Have you told anyone else?"

"Heavens no. I wasn't sure you would even want…"

Tony's heart beats in his throat at the implication. Years ago the notion of making a little stranger and systematically fucking them up for the next eighteen or so years would have indeed been unwelcome. He'd never describe himself as father material, but fortunately nobody asked him the first time. The godlings were just there, just a part of Loki that needed help, that he had to accept like all his other baggage.

Now he can't imagine saying no, can't fathom a situation where he wouldn't want to hold a chubby little person in his arms and see his mother's eyes, his father's cheeks, Loki's weird nose.

He kneels on the floor and spreads Loki's shirt open, kisses his flat belly and hopes like hell that their mismatched genes play nice. It's terrifying, the prospect of being evolution's guinea pig. But he's a genius in need of a hobby. When it comes to this soon-to-be spoiled brat, he can already tell he's going to be a madman.

"Hey, baby."

"They can't possibly hear you yet."

"I wasn't talking to you!" Tony glares indignantly, feeling stupid and helpless to stop himself. He kisses Loki's stomach again and whispers to probably no one, "Hey, you little freeloader, you're squatting in prime real estate, understand? You better treat mommy nice or daddy's gonna be really pissed at you."

Loki's stomach quivers under his lips, a little ticklish and a lot embarrassed. Long nails card through his hair and send warm shivers down his back. He holds Tony's ear against his stomach and rubs at his still bleary eyes.

"Say it again." Loki's voice cracks, so rough and near silent in the dark.

"Hey, baby." Tony says, and this time Loki wipes his eyes instead.

The early dawn light turns the snow and frozen pond to glitter crystals, and the crisp air burns his lungs in a way that makes him feel alive. Birdsong echoes through the bare trees as arctic refuges scavenge the pines for food. It's the most tranquil place he's ever been, and even knee deep in powder with his boots soaked through he can't believe he lives here.

Crunching footsteps alert him to a visitor, and when he twists around he's greeted by a bright eyed Hela bearing coffee. He accepts his mug with a smile most would reserve for winning the lottery.

"Got your bags packed?" he asks.

"Mostly." ze shrugs. "Dad says we'll probably go shopping in Baltimore so I don't see the point in double checking."

"Well, you know." Tony shrugs, indicating his only outfit, which is the now slightly soiled one from last night.

Hela quirks an eyebrow at the frozen lake and Tony's somewhat mussed hair.

"Aren't you cold?"

"I'm used to it." Tony sips his mug and has to reboot his brain. God, that is so good.

"Don't tell me you're getting sentimental."

"So what if I am?" he tries to fix his hair but feels it flip right back where it was. "I can't believe this is all real. The pardon, the house, the ba–"

He stops himself. Hela snorts, blowing on hir mug. Tony balks.

"I caught him in the storage room in the old house." ze shrugs, "Not much in there but baby stuff. I told him to tell you. But did he listen to me? Oh, no, nobody listens to me."

The cottage door slams open abruptly, and the valley is suddenly alive with noise and shouting. Tony puts a hand on Hela's shoulder and squeezes.

"That will be the first thing to change. From now on I'm dad. You're only job is to be you."

Hela regards him with a blank, unreadable face ze got directly from hir father.

"Jormungand, you get back here this instant and put your shoes on." Loki calls. "I mean it, I'm not playing. Three...two…one. By the Norns. Hela–"

"What do you need?" Tony yells back, stomping through the snow.

It is the bags. Lugging them up the hill to the big house is a pain in the ass, but that's where the car is parked.

Once it's all in the trunk Loki wipes his brow while Tony gets the boys in their carseats. He moves to get in the driver's seat, but Tony snags him around the waist and worms his way under Loki's arm. The space always feels like it's made for him, a perfect alcove to tuck into and steal body heat.

"Did we forget something?" Loki asks with a slight frown.

Observing the sloping property with its looming pine and swaying willows. Somewhere under the drifts he hopes there's a stone bench covered in vines, a patch of tall grass where he and Loki can lay and argue over baby names.

The big house sits up the hill, waiting to be occupied by memories and tiny shoes with bear faces on them. Kissing Loki's temple, he takes one last look and tries to memorize every detail.

"Remind me...when do we get home?"

"Fourteen days." Loki says, pursing his lips and scanning Tony's face for some clue as to what he's getting at. "If that's alright?"

"No, no, it's good. It'll be good to get away. Monaco is great this time of year."

"We ought not miss our departure." Loki says, still not quite comprehending Tony's stillness.

"I just wanted to know, that's all. When we get home, you know."

A smile breaks through Loki's quizzical expression when he gets it. His eyes soften in a look of tranquility and pride Tony hasn't seen in a long, long time.

"Oh, yes. We won't be away long. From home that is."

Tony pecks him on the lips, still chapped and a bit red from last night's romp. The way they should be, in his opinion. He grins back and boops him on the nose just to see him wrinkle it up and glare.

"Well alright, let's get outta here. What are you dragging your heels for?"

He nearly slips on ice running to the passenger side door and Loki snorts.

"I am, as always, here to sop up your ridiculous sentimental nonsense before you–"

Tony slams the door shut before Loki can finish whining. The kids are bickering in the back, smacking each other with mitten covered hands and fighting over who gets the tablet first. He calls the court to order with a raised hand as Loki seats himself at the wheel.

"Alright, brats, show of hands, who wants Burger King?"

Crickets. Not one finger lifted. Heathens.


End file.
